Ancient Germanic Warriors - Irminsol Heathen Fellowship
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ANCIENT GERMANIC WARRIORS
ANCIENT GERMANIC<br />
WARRIORS<br />
Warrior styles from Trajan’s Column to Icelandic sagas<br />
Michael P.Speidel<br />
LONDON AND NEW YORK
First published 2004 by Routledge 29 West 35th Street, New York, NY 10001<br />
Simultaneously published in the UK by Routledge 11 New Fetter Lane, London EC4P 4EE<br />
Routledge is an imprint of the Taylor & Francis Group<br />
This edition published in the Taylor & Francis e-Library, 2005.<br />
“ To purchase your own copy of this or any of Taylor & Francis or Routledge’s collection of<br />
thousands of eBooks please go to http://www.ebookstore.tandf.co.uk/.”<br />
© 2004 Michael P.Speidel<br />
All rights reserved. No part of this book my be reprinted or reproduced or utilized in any form or<br />
by any electronic, mechanical, or other means, now known or hereafter invented, including<br />
photocopying and recording, or in any information storage or retrieval system, without permisslon<br />
in writing from the publishers.<br />
Library of Congress Cataloging in Publication Data A catalog record for this book has been<br />
requested<br />
British Library Cataloguing in Publication Data A catalogue record for this book is available<br />
from the British Library<br />
ISBN Master e-book ISBN<br />
ISBN 0-415-31199-3 (Print Edition)
TO ANTHONY BIRLEY IN FRIENDSHIP
PART 1 Animal warriors<br />
CONTENTS<br />
List of figures viii<br />
Preface xii<br />
Acknowledgements xiii<br />
Introduction 1<br />
1 Wolves 10<br />
2 Bears 34<br />
3 Bucks 41<br />
4 Martens 46<br />
PART 2 Frightening warriors<br />
5 Naked berserks 51<br />
6 Ghosts 73<br />
PART 3 Strong men<br />
7 Club-wielders 77<br />
8 Wielders of huge spears 87<br />
9<br />
50<br />
76
PART 4 Shield warriors<br />
9 Shield castles 91<br />
10 Chanting 97<br />
11 War dances 101<br />
PART 5 Churls<br />
12 Dart-throwers 114<br />
13 Rock-throwers 116<br />
PART 6 Horsemen<br />
14 Lancers 119<br />
15 Spear-throwers 125<br />
16 Wheeling right 129<br />
PART 7 Foot against horse<br />
17 Horse-stabbers 133<br />
18 Horse-hewers 147<br />
PART 8 Outstanding warriors<br />
19 Long-hairs 156<br />
20 Helmet-wearers 162<br />
PART 9 Warrior styles through the ages<br />
21 Iron Age warriors and the civilizations of Greece and Rome 172<br />
22 End and afterglow 177<br />
90<br />
113<br />
118<br />
132<br />
155<br />
171
Conclusion 180<br />
Timetable 181<br />
Notes 183<br />
Bibliography 258<br />
Index 283
FIGURES<br />
0.1 Trajan’s marching route with his strike force in AD 101 4<br />
0.2 The emperor with his strike force, Trajan’s Column, scene 36 4<br />
1.1 <strong>Warriors</strong> on Trajan’s Column wearing wolfskins, bearskins and<br />
crossband helmets<br />
1.2 Shield badges of Auxilia Palatina units in the Notitia<br />
Dignitatum<br />
1.3 Seventh-century silver scabbard, Gutenstein 21<br />
1.4 The Gutenstein dies reconstructed 24<br />
1.5 Wolf-warrior offering his sword to Woden, silver foil,<br />
Obrigheim, Pfalz<br />
1.6 Woden with twin-dragon headgear followed by a wolf-warrior<br />
drawing his sword, bronze die, Torslunda, Öland<br />
1.7 Sigmund (?), fighting the worm, bronze figurine, Ekhammar,<br />
Uppland<br />
1.8 Hundsgugel wolf-helmet of about AD 1390–1400, southern<br />
Germany<br />
2.1 Bear- and wolf-warriors, wearing different pelt hoods 35<br />
3.1 Warrior with horned helmet at the siege of Verona (AD 311),<br />
Constantine’s Arch, Rome<br />
3.2 Shield with facing twin dragons, Constantine’s Arch, Rome 43<br />
3.3 Buck on scabbard chape, Fredsö, Denmark 44<br />
14<br />
17<br />
26<br />
28<br />
30<br />
33<br />
42
4.1 <strong>Germanic</strong> helmet with feathers and perhaps a marten skull,<br />
Gelduba, Rhineland<br />
4.2 Marten shield badge, Notitia Dignitatum 48<br />
4.3 Boar-warrior, Oseberg wall-hanging, Oslo 49<br />
5.1 The emperor and his barefoot followers, Trajan’s Column,<br />
scene 36<br />
5.2 Barefooted, bare-chested warriors fighting with rapiers,<br />
Trajan’s Column, scene 40<br />
5.3 Barefooted swordsmen, Trajan’s Column, scene 42 57<br />
5.4 Ivory chess piece showing berserk biting his shield, Isle of<br />
Lewis<br />
7.1 Club-wielder with shield and sword, Trajan’s Column, scene 24 79<br />
7.2 Club-men, fighting, Trajan’s column, scene 38 80<br />
7.3 Horse chest guard, Transylvania, showing club-wielder and<br />
horseman on the attack<br />
8.1 Rock drawing from Tanum, Bohuslän, showing wielder of a<br />
huge spear<br />
9.1 A shield wall on the attack, Trajan’s Column, scene 70 92<br />
10.1 Bronze foil from Valsgärde showing warriors chanting the<br />
barritus<br />
11.1 Spear dancer drawing from Tanum, Bohuslän 104<br />
11.2 Bracteate medallion from Års, Denmark, depicting war god<br />
dancing<br />
11.3 Gilt buckle from Finglesham, Kent, showing weapon dancer 107<br />
47<br />
55<br />
56<br />
70<br />
82<br />
88<br />
99<br />
105
11.4 Ancestor masks of twin-dragon dancers, wolf-warriors, and<br />
long-hairs(?)<br />
11.5 The Battle at Bråvalla, Oseberg wall-hanging, Oslo 112<br />
14.1 Lancers of Trajan’s bodyguard, Trajan’s Column, scene 5 120<br />
14.2 Gravestone from Gerulata, Slovakia, showing horseman with<br />
huge lance<br />
14.3 Horseman with heavy spear, bronze foil, Vendel, Uppland 123<br />
15.1 Spear and shield of a second-century horse guardsman,<br />
gravestone, Rome<br />
17.1 Horse-stabber underhoof, gravestone of Romanius, Mainz 137<br />
17.2 Horse-stabber underhoof, gravestone of Dolanus, Wiesbaden 138<br />
17.3 Kneeling warrior, facing a horseman of the emperor’s guard,<br />
gravestone, Rome<br />
17.4 Horse-stabber with spear, sarcophagus from Portonaccio, Rome 141<br />
17.5 Sixth-century horse-stabber on disc brooch from Pliezhausen,<br />
Baden-Württemberg<br />
18.1 Long-haired Chattian warrior with curved sword, gravestone of<br />
Andes, Mainz<br />
18.2 Horse-hewer with curved weapon, sarcophagus from<br />
Portonaccio, Rome<br />
18.3 Miniature bronze weapon from Enns, Oberösterreich 151<br />
18.4 Weapons of the squire, twin grave at Káloz, Hungary 152<br />
19.1 Long-haired tribal warrior, gravestone of Carminius Ingenuus,<br />
Worms<br />
110<br />
121<br />
127<br />
140<br />
144<br />
149<br />
150<br />
159
20.2 Open Vendel helmet with a ridge (wale), grave 6, Valsgärde,<br />
Uppland<br />
20.3 Silver crown from Thorsberg, Schleswig 166<br />
20.4 Lothair I, wearing an open crown with a wale, book cover,<br />
British Library, London<br />
20.5 German imperial crown (AD 1027), Weltliche Schatzkammer,<br />
Hofburg, Wien<br />
21.1 Giant warrior overcome by Roman horsemen, bronze scabbard,<br />
Windisch<br />
21.2 <strong>Germanic</strong> guards of Theodosius (AD 379–395), Theodosius’<br />
Obelisk, Byzantium<br />
163<br />
168<br />
169<br />
174<br />
176
PREFACE<br />
Iron Age warriors, shapers of Europe, first came to my mind on a cold winter day in 1948<br />
when my twin brother and I crossed frozen Lake Greifensee in Switzerland. As we came<br />
through the fog to the far shore, the ruins of Fort Irgenhausen rose before us. The walls,<br />
so a sign said, were Roman. We gasped at the depth of time, wondering about Romans<br />
who had lived in heated buildings and banished the frost that bit our fingers. We<br />
wondered too about the Alamanni outside the fort, shivering and howling in the woods—<br />
ferum ululantes et lugubre, as Ammianus gives to understand—but who in their turn<br />
became lords of the land.<br />
My scholarly interest in ancient warrior styles awoke years later when I saw that the<br />
reliefs in scene 36 of Trajan’s Column show the men nearest the emperor to be barechested<br />
and barefooted, followed by club-wielders, wolf- and bear-warriors, and wearers<br />
of crossband helmets—all representing <strong>Germanic</strong>, not Roman, warrior styles. Trying to<br />
understand these warrior styles, to trace them in the ancient sources, and to see them in<br />
the context of world history, took ten years of work.<br />
War is anguish and must not be idealized. Yet it also leads to some of mankind’s most<br />
intense outbursts of life—it is hard not to be stirred by the daring and ecstasy of Iron Age<br />
warriors.<br />
Mt. Tantalus and Maleakahana,<br />
Honolulu, Summer 2003
ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS<br />
For help and guidance I thank friends and colleagues, above all Morten Axboe, Dietwulf<br />
Baatz, Heinrich Beck, Marianne Bergmann, Helmut Birkhan, Anthony and Heide Birley,<br />
Waltraut Boppert, my sister Sylvia Couchoud, Sigrid Dušek, Klaus Düwel, Gerhard<br />
Fingerlin, Klaus Fittschen, Karl Hauck, I-Tien Hsieng, Bernhard Palme, Michael<br />
Pavkovic, Barbara Scardigli, Wolfgang Schlüter, M.Schulze-Dörrlamm, Gisli<br />
Sigurdsson, Heiko Steuer, Oliver Stoll, Bengt Thomasson, Dieter Timpe, Hanns Ubl,<br />
Barbara Wührer, Paul Zanker, and my nephew Michael Speidel the Younger.<br />
Ever-generous Idus Newby, Professor Emeritus and former Chair of the History<br />
Department at the University of Hawaii, turned my phrases as he did with Riding for<br />
Caesar. Gisela, my wife, shared in this as in all my quests; we traveled together in search<br />
of sources to the far corners of the earth from Iceland to Fireland, and in countless<br />
conversations and manuscript readings she straightened the lines of reasoning.
Introduction 1<br />
INTRODUCTION<br />
<strong>Ancient</strong> warrior styles<br />
Archaic warriors everywhere re-enacted in masked dances the deeds of gods and<br />
ancestors. They did so to gain the divine ecstasy of “the beginning of time.” <strong>Germanic</strong><br />
warriors too danced in this way. In battle, when it mattered most to live in mythical time,<br />
warriors bodied forth gods and ancestors by fighting in their style. 1<br />
Batavi going to battle sang of “Hercules,” their ancestral, club-wielding hero. As the<br />
hero inspired them, one may assume that some among them fought with clubs in the<br />
hero’s style. Gods and hero-ancestors no doubt were models also for wolf-warriors, longhairs,<br />
ghost warriors, barritus-dancers, and naked berserks. New finds may one day tell<br />
us of the mythic models of other warrior styles as well.<br />
Such styles upheld tribal traditions, culture, and identity. They also heartened the<br />
individual warrior: becoming greater than himself, a part of the tribe’s past and future, he<br />
rose above whatever might befall him in battle. He fulfilled his role by fighting as his<br />
forefathers had done and as those after him would do.<br />
Arising from beliefs and states of mind as well as from weapons, warrior styles<br />
manifest themselves in dress, weaponry, and fighting technique. Therein lies their<br />
fascination. As a battle leader dons a “mask of command,” so warriors, in the words of<br />
Wallace Stevens, don “an inhuman person, a mask, a spirit, an accoutrement,” which<br />
captures well the link between outfit and outlook that underlies warrior styles. 2<br />
“Styles” are a flexible, inclusive concept: some are narrowly technical, others ideabound,<br />
and all shade into others: wolf-warriors might go berserk, shield warriors wield<br />
clubs, and long-hairs fight as horse-stabbers. It is nevertheless helpful to focus on specific<br />
styles, for it brings into view something of the looks, mind-set, and fighting techniques—<br />
and perhaps the essence—of each style.<br />
Warrior styles have much to offer our understanding of history. They tell us how long<br />
ago, when war was still welcome, fighting men reached the state of ecstasy that led them<br />
to do astounding things. 3 They lead us into the heart of Vedic Indian, Homeric, Celtic,<br />
and <strong>Germanic</strong> civilizations, where fighting prowess was the measure of a man. 4 They link<br />
the Bronze, Iron, and Middle Ages—two thousand years of history seldom seen as<br />
belonging together. They often turned the wheel of events during these many years: wolfwarriors<br />
founded Rome in 753 BC, enthroned Emperor Constantine in AD 306, and<br />
united Norway in the battle of Hafrsfjord in AD 872; and horse-stabbers won the battle of<br />
Pharsalus in 48 BC that turned Rome from a republic into a monarchy.<br />
Found during the Bronze Age almost everywhere in Europe and West Asia, these<br />
styles gave way among classical Greeks and Romans to “rational” warfare. In middle and<br />
northern Europe, however, warriors followed the old styles throughout the Iron Age and<br />
early Middle Ages. There one can study them in detail and trace their history.<br />
Not that scholars have ignored these styles. Good work has been done, above all, on<br />
Indo-European warriors. But no one has treated Indo-European or <strong>Germanic</strong> warrior
<strong>Ancient</strong> <strong>Germanic</strong> warriors 2<br />
styles as a whole. Though modern surveys overlook them, they are well worth studying<br />
for their great role in history and for the light they shed on the minds of men who lived so<br />
long ago. 5 Much that is offered here is new, and our study carries the risks of pioneering<br />
endeavor. Yet chances are good of winning fresh insights from a thorough reading of<br />
both Roman and <strong>Germanic</strong> evidence. Roman evidence is trustworthier than is often<br />
acknowledged—ancient writers and sculptors knew their times better than modern<br />
critics. 6 Besides, Roman evidence keeps growing: new archaeological and epigraphic<br />
sources come to light every year, widening and deepening our knowledge of <strong>Germanic</strong><br />
warriors during the first five centuries of our era.<br />
<strong>Germanic</strong> evidence too has grown greatly over the last decades. New embossed metal<br />
foils with seventh-century warrior images have been found, and almost a thousand<br />
bracteate (gold-leaf) amulets from the fifth and sixth centuries are now accessible in<br />
splendid photographs and drawings. These sources prove that warriors worshiped Woden<br />
and told his myths much earlier than hitherto thought; some fighting styles are thus best<br />
understood in the light of Woden worship. <strong>Ancient</strong> <strong>Germanic</strong> warrior names, authentic<br />
evidence from before the beginning of our era, underpin our knowledge of warrior styles,<br />
and since Wilhelm Grimm first treated them in 1865, new collections and studies have<br />
made them more useful still. 7 Luckily, from eighth-century Beowulf to thirteenth-century<br />
Icelandic sagas (and Saxo Grammaticus of Denmark), northern literary works enliven the<br />
documentary evidence.<br />
Early cultures around the world provide further insight. In the Americas as well as<br />
Africa, warrior societies dominated archaic cultures as much as they did in Europe.<br />
<strong>Germanic</strong> warrior customs such as masked dances, and styles like berserks or wolfwarriors,<br />
find astonishing parallels world-wide that sharpen our perception and help<br />
explain otherwise little-understood customs. They also put <strong>Germanic</strong> warrior styles into<br />
the world-historical framework that is essential for understanding history in the twentyfirst<br />
century. 8<br />
Indo-European forerunners and parallels shed an even brighter light on <strong>Germanic</strong><br />
warrior styles. If Greeks and Vedic Indians separated as late as 1600 BC, as they may<br />
well have done, then the time gap for comparing such eastern and western Indo-<br />
Europeans as Vedic Indians and Germans is not as huge and forbidding as once feared.<br />
Indo-European history and culture are now lively fields of research. What we know of<br />
Indo-European language, myths, ideals, concepts, and institutions suggests that most Iron<br />
Age warrior styles throve already in the Bronze Age of the third millennium BC when<br />
Indo-European nations still lived together. Scholars like George Dumézil and Mircea<br />
Eliade have underpinned this view with persuasive explanations. 9 Though non-Indo-<br />
Europeans often had similar customs, language family is linked with myth, and myth<br />
with warrior styles, 10 which gives IndoEuropean parallels a particular weight. Our study<br />
of each warrior style thus begins with an outline of its Indo-European history.<br />
The old Indo-European warrior styles lived longest and are best documented among<br />
<strong>Germanic</strong> nations of northern Europe. As neighbors, with a common language and<br />
religion, <strong>Germanic</strong> peoples shared one culture. Looking at them, as we will, from 200<br />
BC, the date at which on current understanding <strong>Germanic</strong> culture began, to AD 1000<br />
when Christianity transformed it, one can draw on rich sources within a strong historical<br />
frame, well-grounded in time and space. 11
Introduction 3<br />
Our study focuses mainly on the first seven centuries of our era. Moreover, the bulk of<br />
the evidence bears on western and northern Germani from the Rhine and upper Danube to<br />
Denmark and Sweden. These are the peoples least changed by migration, which may<br />
explain why the picture found in the sources and offered here is so even and unitary.<br />
Having striven to use all major Roman and <strong>Germanic</strong> sources, made my own<br />
translations, and traveled to see with my own eyes the artefacts from the Codex Regius in<br />
Reykjavik to Theodosius’ Obelisk in Constantinople, I am yet aware that this study<br />
stands on how well it interprets works of art like Trajan’s Column, the Gutenstein<br />
scabbard, and the Gerulata gravestone. I nevertheless trust that the wealth of literary<br />
sources gathered here gives a proper voice to the silent pictures and that my findings<br />
reflect what truly happened.<br />
The emperor’s strike force on Trajan’s Column<br />
Trajan’s Column, Rome’s largest and most spectacular work of art, is also our best source<br />
for ancient warrior styles. Standing 100 feet tall on level space carved out of the<br />
Esquiline Hill, the Column celebrates the conquest of Dacia, Rome’s last major<br />
expansion in Europe: spiral reliefs wind up the shaft to show the world how Trajan in AD<br />
101–106 won the new province. 12 His fighting men were not only legionaries, but also<br />
auxiliaries and allies from the borderlands, among them tribal troops from both sides of<br />
the Rhine. Portraying these men, the Column offers the most detailed images of<br />
<strong>Germanic</strong> warrior styles we have from antiquity.<br />
The reliefs tell the story of the Dacian wars in a straightforward sequence of events.<br />
As the scenes unfold, the emperor and his army cross the Danube in the summer of 101<br />
and march north toward the Dacian capital of Sarmizegethusa, in what is now Romanian<br />
Transylvania. There the advance stalls. Worse, to take pressure off their heartland, the<br />
Dacians and their Sarmatian allies undertake a daring counter-thrust southward, deep into<br />
the Roman province of Lower Moesia.<br />
Learning of this, Trajan gathers his fastest troops, mainly auxiliaries and tribal troops,<br />
and rushes with them to the new theater of war. As Figure 0.1 shows, they race to the<br />
river, sail downstream, and by hurried marches come upon the enemy in Lower Moesia.<br />
There they catch and overwhelm roving, plundering bands of Dacians and Sarmatians.<br />
Then, joined by legionaries, Trajan’s strike force wins the decisive battle at Adamklissi,<br />
marked to this day by the huge Tropaeum Traiani monument.<br />
The emperor’s strike force hastening to meet the enemy in Lower Moesia appears in<br />
scene 36 of the Column (Figure 0.2). 13<br />
In the lower part of the scene, the horsemen following the emperor wear auxiliary<br />
mailshirts, neckerchiefs, and helmets. They must be the imperial horse guard, the Equites<br />
Singulares Augusti, for emperors always took the field with their horse guard nearby. The<br />
troopers further behind may form a group of their own and be regular cavalry, unless they<br />
too are part of the horse guard. Only the emperor rides. All other horsemen have alighted<br />
and are walking—a graphic device to stress the speed of the advance, for cavalry horses<br />
on forced marches must be spelled. 14
<strong>Ancient</strong> <strong>Germanic</strong> warriors 4<br />
Figure 0.1 Trajan’s marching route<br />
with his strike force in AD 101.<br />
Figure 0.2 The emperor with his strike<br />
force. Trajan’s Column, scene 36.<br />
Photo: Deutsches Archäologisches<br />
Institut, Rome, Inst. Neg. 90250.
Introduction 5<br />
In the upper part of the scene, foot soldiers hurry along in two groups of eight men each.<br />
Those to the left wear standard mailshirts like regular auxiliaries. Some of them wear<br />
open crossband helmets, others bearskins or wolfskins. Those to the right, led by the<br />
emperor himself, are barefooted, bare-chested youths, followed by a man in a sleeveless<br />
shirt and a club-man. The nearness of these men to the emperor, their tribal battle dress<br />
and strange weapons catch the eye. 15 They are all fast attack troops.<br />
Further on, scenes 37–42 (see Figures 5.2, 5.3, 7.2) show the progress and aftermath<br />
of the Lower Moesian campaign: a cavalry skirmish against Sarmatians, a night attack<br />
against booty-laden Dacians, the crucial battle at Tropaeum Traiani, and Trajan’s speech<br />
to the victorious troops. The emperor’s youthful, barefooted followers appear three times<br />
in these scenes but nowhere else on the Column: in scene 36 they march; in scene 40 they<br />
fight; in scene 42 they are praised. Their presence in this sequence only, hitherto<br />
overlooked, proves that scenes 36–42 belong together and depict a specific campaign,<br />
surely the one that freed Lower Moesia from invaders. 16<br />
The coherence of these scenes is a good reason to trust their portrayal of warriors.<br />
Even Karl Lehmann-Hartleben, the scholar who argued most strongly against historical<br />
accuracy in the reliefs, noted that scene 42, with the emperor’s speech at the end of the<br />
campaign, pays greater heed to the sundry branches of the army than any other such<br />
scene on the Column. The artist, he believed, had been told to make clear which troops<br />
had won this, the bloodiest and most decisive battle of the war. One may add that scene<br />
36, leading up to the battle, depicts even more units and in yet greater detail. The call to<br />
make clear which troops had fought at Tropaeum Traiani thus applied to all scenes from<br />
36 through 42, from the setting out for the battle to its aftermath. Detailed, coherent, and<br />
true in their depiction of events, scenes 36–42 are a well-grounded basis for the study of<br />
tribal warrior styles. 17<br />
How far do the reliefs reflect the true appearance of the soldiers? Aside from a few<br />
inadvertent mistakes, the reliefs stray somewhat from historical accuracy in that for the<br />
sake of clarity they depict all legionaries in strip armor and all auxiliaries in mailshirts,<br />
while in reality some legionaries also wore mailshirts or scale armor. Likewise, in reality,<br />
Dacians often wore armor and rode on horseback, but, being enemies, are rarely thus<br />
shown on the reliefs. 18<br />
These are not telling inaccuracies, however, for unlike some other works of Roman<br />
triumphal art Trajan’s Column, greatly to its credit, does not invent dress or equipment,<br />
nor does it change them to make them look “classical.” Above all, it portrays outlandish<br />
troops in careful, realistic detail. Caftan-clad oriental bowmen as well as bare-back<br />
riding, curly haired Mauri are shown with great accuracy. Even scale-armored Sarmatians<br />
are portrayed with some correctness. The same is therefore likely to be true of Trajan’s<br />
outlandish troops in scene 36. 19<br />
Nor does the Column indulge in the exotic. Tradition demanded that the artists depict<br />
a colorful array, eager to fight. Bhagavad Gita and Homer give a rousing roll-call of the<br />
warriors who came to the great war. Herodotus does the same for the army Xerxes led<br />
into Greece. Vergil vies with Homer and Herodotus in portraying the warriors who<br />
fought Aeneas’ war in Latium. And Saxo Grammaticus lists with relish the troops who<br />
battled at Bråvalla. As for Trajan’s Column, to give epic scope to the narrative of the<br />
Dacian wars, it too had to portray far-fetched, colorful tribesmen. To do so it used the<br />
agreed-upon view of northern tribesmen: tall, half-naked, long-haired, eager to fight. But
<strong>Ancient</strong> <strong>Germanic</strong> warriors 6<br />
the time-worn view was also true to life, as borne out by the mass of evidence offered in<br />
the following chapters. Besides, the Roman army not only hired men who fit its<br />
stereotypes, but equipped, used, and rewarded them accordingly. In that sense, too, myth<br />
is reality. 20 Hence while the Column’s exotic bias may unduly highlight some features,<br />
by and large the warriors of Trajan’s strike force must have looked like the Column<br />
portrays them.<br />
Indeed, criticism of the Column’s accuracy can prove risky. Scholars have faulted the<br />
reliefs for giving horsemen oval rather than six-cornered shields, but a survey of<br />
horsemen carved on gravestones (whose reliefs are rather close to reality in such matters)<br />
shows that most of their shields were oval, just as the Column portrays them. 21 For good<br />
reasons the reliefs of Trajan’s Column are our main source.<br />
<strong>Germanic</strong> tribesmen in Roman armies<br />
The emperor’s strike force in scene 36 of Trajan’s Column consists mainly of Trajan’s<br />
horse guard, the Equites Singulares Augusti, his most highly trained elite troops. Trajan<br />
raised the unit himself, mainly from the Batavi and other <strong>Germanic</strong> tribes in the Roman<br />
Empire. Since his horse guard bore the name Batavi, as did Augustus’ horse guard before<br />
them, Trajan, like Augustus, must have considered the Batavi to be what Tacitus called<br />
them: the manliest Germani. Chosen from horsemen who served in the alae, they stood<br />
above the horsemen of the cohorts in height, weaponry, skill, and prestige. Some of the<br />
horsemen in scene 36 may be meant to represent regular cavalry alae, but there is no<br />
telling to which of the many alae they belonged. 22<br />
It is even harder to know the units of the foot soldiers, for first-century <strong>Germanic</strong><br />
auxiliaries of the cohorts are hard to distinguish from tribal irregulars. Scholars were right<br />
to take the men on the upper left of scene 36 to be soldiers of regular auxiliary cohorts as<br />
they wear standard mailshirts. Judged by their wolf-hoods alone, these men could be<br />
either Germani or free Celts from northern Britain. Yet by the end of the first century AD<br />
most of the allies and auxiliaries who fought Rome’s battles in Europe were Germani<br />
rather than Celts. Moreover, as we will see, bear-warriors were a <strong>Germanic</strong> rather than a<br />
Celtic style, and four warriors in this scene wear crossband helmets that are related to<br />
<strong>Germanic</strong> Vendel helmets, while the bare-chested troops further to the right wear<br />
typically <strong>Germanic</strong> dress. Being warriors in bear- and wolf-hoods, yet wearing Roman<br />
cuirasses, the men could belong to such elite units as cohort I and II milliaria Batavorum.<br />
The altar at Adamklissi, on which the fallen of this campaign are listed, names the latter<br />
unit. 23<br />
With mixed Roman and <strong>Germanic</strong> battle gear, Trajan’s soldiers in scene 36 match<br />
archaeological finds in the Roman province of Lower Germany, where forts and graves<br />
with mixed Roman and <strong>Germanic</strong> weaponry—and drinking horns—have come to light.<br />
Auxiliaries of Lower Germany were recruited on both sides of the Rhine, as shown by<br />
names like Assuarius and Halucus that derive from the tribal names Chassuarii and<br />
Chauci. 24 Although they kept some of their tribal battle gear, the men in the upper left of<br />
scene 36 are thus nevertheless likely to be regular Roman auxiliaries. 25<br />
Further proof of the trustworthiness of scene 36 is the portrayal of warriors wearing<br />
wolf-pelts with narrow paws as different from others wearing bear-pelts with broad paws.
Introduction 7<br />
Nowhere else in antiquity do we hear of wolf-warriors and bear-warriors fighting<br />
together. But in AD 872, Thorbjorn Hornklofi depicts <strong>Germanic</strong> wolf- and bear-warriors<br />
fighting side by side: they line the flagship of King Harald Fairhair of Norway in the<br />
battle of Hafrsfjord. It is astonishing to find in a work of Roman art the same two kinds<br />
of animal warriors that 800 years later stalk through a skaldic poem as úlfheðnar (wolfhood<br />
wearers) and berserkir (bear-shirt wearers; later: any furious warrior). Hornklofi’s<br />
poem shows that these two warrior styles existed together and that in this the Column<br />
portrays them accurately. 26<br />
To judge from their bare chests, the tribesmen in the upper right of scene 36 are<br />
likewise <strong>Germanic</strong>. 27 The foot soldiers in the middle are trousered clubmen, and a wearer<br />
of a sleeveless shirt of whom we know for certain that he is a German, for the<br />
ambassador of the Buri alliance in scene 9 of the Column wears the same kind of shirt.<br />
Both therefore belong to the same nation, no doubt the Armilausi (“The Sleeveless”), so<br />
named after their battle garb. 28<br />
The presence of such tribesmen does not surprise, for <strong>Germanic</strong> tribal warriors often<br />
joined imperial field armies. 29 Those depicted here were drawn from the expeditionary<br />
army of Trajan’s summer campaign in Transylvania, which had just ended. This is certain<br />
for the club-men whom scene 24 shows fighting in that campaign, and it is likely for the<br />
others as well. 30<br />
Wearing different dress, the club-man and the man in the sleeveless shirt of scene 36<br />
belong to different tribes. Putting sundry tribes next to each other was good tactics, for<br />
men from different tribes fighting side by side strove to outdo each other. Besides, they<br />
could fight well alongside as they shared similar warrior styles. 31<br />
Yet other men are the nearly naked foot soldiers farthest to the right and nearest the<br />
emperor. They seem to be Trajan’s Pedites Singulares, guardsmen he had when he was<br />
governor of Roman Germany, as we will argue in the chapter on berserks.<br />
Scene 36 underscores the light weapons, the breakneck speed, and fierceness of the<br />
troops Trajan mustered to meet the threat to Roman Moesia. The troops around him had<br />
to fight the bloodiest battle of the war. How did he choose them? He needed fast, keen,<br />
well-trained men. Caesar and Tacitus, like Trajan, considered <strong>Germanic</strong> warriors the<br />
fastest, keenest, most skillful fighters to be had. 32 And their huge frames and fierce looks<br />
cast dread into the enemy. 33 These, surely, are the reasons why Trajan chose so many<br />
<strong>Germanic</strong> troops for his strike force. The slower legionaries and praetorians, who<br />
accompanied him on the river journey and reappear for the final battle at Tropaeum<br />
Traiani in scene 40, are by design missing in the hurried overland march depicted in<br />
scene 36. 34<br />
The make-up of Trajan’s strike force is traditional in that Romans often brigaded<br />
regular <strong>Germanic</strong> auxiliaries with irregular troops as fast and firstwave shock troops.<br />
They did this in AD 28 against the Frisians, when they sent their speediest troops, the<br />
horsemen of ala Canninefatium and irregular Germani foot, to hit the foe first, and again<br />
in AD 50 against the plundering Chatti, and again in the civil war of AD 69–70, when<br />
Batavian cohorts served as shock troops alongside tribesmen from beyond the Rhine.<br />
Batavi brigaded with other tribesmen were thus a tried and trusted combination. Even<br />
Lucanus’ poetic scare of Caesar’s army overrunning Rome lists “barbarian” cavalry<br />
auxilia and tribesmen from beyond the Rhine among the invader’s forces. 35 There is no<br />
way of knowing how many tribesmen were in Trajan’s strike force, but it would take at
<strong>Ancient</strong> <strong>Germanic</strong> warriors 8<br />
least a thousand regulars and another thousand irregulars each to have operational impact<br />
or warrant the emperor himself leading the force to a new theater of war. The horse guard<br />
too was a thousand strong. 36<br />
The presence of <strong>Germanic</strong> guards, auxilia, and tribesmen in the emperor’s strike force<br />
gives one pause. Trajan’s reign marks the high point of the Empire, by which time long<br />
peace had broken the warlike spirit of the Roman heartland and even the provinces.<br />
Crack troops had thus to be raised in lands at or beyond the borders, where men were still<br />
warlike. Though Tacitus put the claim that foreigners are the only strength of Roman<br />
armies into the mouth of an enemy of Rome, the composition of Trajan’s army at the<br />
height of the Empire nevertheless bears that claim out and foreshadows Rome’s fall,<br />
which came when her field armies were overwhelmingly tribal. The history of the Empire<br />
depended on where it raised its troops. 37<br />
Could Trajan marshal motley groups of outlanders into an effective fighting force? It<br />
had been done before: in 48 BC Labienus welded Gallic and <strong>Germanic</strong> horsemen into<br />
such a force, arming, mounting, and training them himself. They responded with skill,<br />
dauntlessness, and loyalty as long as there was hope of winning. Caesar’s <strong>Germanic</strong><br />
horse guard, hired on the spot in Gaul, must have been more foreign than Roman in<br />
equipment, tactics, and morale. Trajan’s bare-chested warriors and club-wielders, even<br />
though truly tribal, were commanded by Roman officers, as was customary during the<br />
High Empire. His barefooted berserks, if indeed Singulares guards of Roman Germany,<br />
combined Roman discipline with their own, older ethos of keeping faith. It was this ethos<br />
that allowed Trajan to lead a <strong>Germanic</strong> strike force of mixed origin that must have been<br />
harder to keep in order than regular auxiliary troops. Besides, being chosen by the<br />
emperor for this mission must have swelled the warriors’ pride and strengthened their<br />
bond with him. 38<br />
If that was not enough, the regulars of Trajan’s horse guard of the Equites Singulares<br />
Augusti gave him means to stiffen the discipline of his tribal forces. The combination of<br />
imperial guard and irregulars was a winner: Caracalla relied on it, as did Aurelian; and<br />
Constantine added to his regular guard, the schola Scutariorum, a tribal counterpart, the<br />
schola Gentilium. Theodosius too kept discipline among tribal warriors with the help of<br />
his horse guard, and King Harald of Norway in AD 872 likewise had a regular bodyguard<br />
besides his berserks. 39<br />
Trajan had further reason to recruit tribesmen from beyond the Rhine. When he set out<br />
for the Dacian war, he had but a weak garrison to leave on the Rhine frontier. The best<br />
way for him to keep tribes beyond the river from raiding the weakened provinces was to<br />
take the tribes’ finest warriors along. Some of Trajan’s club-men and naked berserks may<br />
thus have been Chatti and Mattiaci from beyond the Rhine, known for their fighting<br />
prowess.<br />
As <strong>Germanic</strong> tribesmen were essential to Roman field armies before and after Trajan,<br />
their presence in scene 36 of the Column is to be expected, even though the scene is often<br />
overlooked in studies of <strong>Germanic</strong> troops in the Roman army. We will return to it again<br />
and again for the rich insights it offers on ancient <strong>Germanic</strong> warriors. 40
Part 1<br />
ANIMAL WARRIORS
1<br />
WOLVES<br />
Wolf-warriors howled and shook weapons.<br />
Thorbjorn Hornklofi, Haraldskvœði<br />
Indo-European wolf-warriors<br />
The idea of changing into an animal gripped the imagination of early man the world<br />
over—Agamemnon, Plato says, wanted to become an eagle, Ajax a lion, Orpheus a<br />
swan—and it works its metaphoric magic even today. Stone Age hunters felt the spell of<br />
animal sympathy and the altered state of mind that comes with it: in Aurignacian cavewall<br />
paintings of 60,000 years ago, men wear animal masks not only to stalk prey but to<br />
identify with their ancestors in dances. A cave-dweller in southern Germany 34,000 years<br />
ago carved a lion-headed human figure in ivory. E.O.Wilson said: “We are not just afraid<br />
of predators, we are transfixed by them, prone to weave stories and fables and chatter<br />
endlessly about them, because fascination creates preparedness, and preparedness,<br />
survival. In a deeply tribal sense, we love our monsters.” 1 With such animal sympathy he<br />
who “was” a predator was a keener warrior.<br />
<strong>Warriors</strong> world-wide found their symbols in awesome aspects of nature: thunder,<br />
storm, and lightning, steadiness of mountain roots, rip of rivers, sturdiness of trees, and<br />
flight of birds. 2 Yet they liked toothed animals best, for unlike other thrills of nature,<br />
animals could be more than symbols: one could identify with them. Libyans had belted<br />
dog-warriors; Black Africans had lion-, leopard-, and panther-warriors; Aztecs puma-,<br />
jaguar-, and wolf-warriors; Caribs and Chinese had tiger-warriors; Romans lion-guards.<br />
As late as the twentieth century, Austro-Hungarian guard officers wore leopard skins. 3<br />
Identifying with such animals not only gave a rich, transforming experience, but the very<br />
origin of war and male pride has been traced to mankind’s mesolithic change from prey<br />
to predator. 4<br />
Indo-European warriors, from Vedic Indians and Iranians to Celts and Germani, were<br />
greatly given to animal identities. Homer often describes the fighting excellence and<br />
character of a hero by likening him to a lion, a boar, or an eagle, much as the poetry of<br />
island Celts expresses their warrior spirit in terms of the animal world. Classical Greeks<br />
and Romans held on to some of this spirit: to characterize the armies of Alexander the<br />
Great or Julius Caesar as the keenest of warriors, Arrian could do no better than say they<br />
fought like wild animals. Clearly, Indo-Europeans (and not only they) kept some of their<br />
former roles as they moved from primitive to archaic, and, in the case of Greece and<br />
Rome, to “civilized” warfare. 5<br />
Wolves played a great role as warrior models throughout Eurasia and North America:<br />
wolf-warriors appear among Indo-Europeans, Turks, Mongols, and American Indians.
Wolves 11<br />
New World Indians brought from Siberia not only shamanism and wolf-ancestor myths,<br />
but, it seems, also wolf-, bear-, bird-, and big-cat warriordom. 6 They sent forth wolfwarriors<br />
as scouts, and even patterned their warfare on wolflike spying:<br />
It is interesting to note that Wolf in one form or another was the patron<br />
spirit of war all over the Plains. He was primarily the genius of the<br />
intelligence service, the ruthless, crafty, cautious hunter. This may well be<br />
taken as symbolic of all Plains, or of all American Indian warfare. Its<br />
prototype was the shrewd stalker and, as Wolf’s depredations depended<br />
upon intelligence, the Indians hunted men in the same manner. The<br />
service of intelligence was the one branch of their art of war which was<br />
perfectly developed. 7<br />
The best way to identify with an animal is to don its pelt: a mid-sixteenth-century<br />
drawing shows a Mexican Cuetlachtli warrior wearing a wolf-hood, much like Indo-<br />
European wolf-warriors. Since wearing the animal’s skin is essential to animal-warrior<br />
styles, it is of great interest to see this done in the New World no less than in the Old.<br />
Both American and European folk tales speak of people being changed into wolves by<br />
wearing wolfskins, and of being freed from shape-shifting by burning the skins. 8<br />
Animals, especially wolves, offered much to the warrior bent on going beyond the<br />
bounds of his humanity: he could walk, jump, or run as the chosen animals did; also hide,<br />
creep, lurk, scream, bray, and howl as they did—wolves often howl in triumph at a kill—<br />
and in all he could frighten the enemy while venting his own fear. He could take on an<br />
animal’s rage, dread, or pride and thus free himself of cultural constraints or conscience<br />
(much as modern warriors do when they focus on technology). Moreover, with their<br />
power to change into animals and travel to other worlds, shamans gave wolf- and bearwarriordom<br />
a cosmic dimension. 9<br />
Wolves and hyenas, almost alone among animals, fight in packs—as if going to war.<br />
Fiercely baring their teeth, with eyes flashing danger, howling dreadfully, and biting<br />
through their prey’s windpipe, they are the most gripping warrior animals. 10<br />
From wolves warriors learned stealth. As a wolf-man of our own time puts it:<br />
The wolves moved deftly and silently in the woods and in trying to imitate<br />
them I came to walk more quietly and to freeze at the sign of slight<br />
movement. At first this imitation gave me no advantage, but after several<br />
weeks I realized I was becoming far more attuned to the environment we<br />
moved through. I heard more, for one thing, and my senses now<br />
constantly alert, I occasionally saw a deer mouse or a grouse before they<br />
did… I could attune myself better to the woods by behaving as they did—<br />
minutely inspecting certain things, seeking vantage points, always sniffing<br />
at the air. I did, and felt vigorous, charged with alertness. 11<br />
Good camouflage, wolfskins allowed scouts to hide. Homer tells of the Trojan night-spy<br />
Dolon hiding under a wolfskin, and Euripides embellishes the tale:
<strong>Ancient</strong> <strong>Germanic</strong> warriors 12<br />
I will draw a wolf skin over my back,<br />
put the beast’s gaping jaws around my head,<br />
fasten the forelegs to my hands<br />
its legs to mine, and mimic the four-footed<br />
wolf-gait, hard to spot for the foes.<br />
Euripides, whose Dolon walks on all fours like a wolf, stresses the stealth that the<br />
wolfskin grants. In Greek, Etruscan, and Gallic myths, a wolf-hood makes one<br />
invisible. 12<br />
Speed is another astounding quality of wolves. They trot unflaggingly, lightly, and<br />
quickly—easily 50 miles a day. Homer’s wolf-warrior Dolon was a fast runner. Young<br />
and swift, wolf-warriors often served as scouts and skirmishers. 13 Wolves, moreover, far<br />
outdo man in fieldcraft: they are the easy masters of the woods, the wild, the winter, and<br />
the night, all frightening and uncanny to man.<br />
Of all wild animals, wolves are closest to man in social instincts. They respect rank,<br />
delight in each other’s company, and are so dedicated to the pack that the Hittite king<br />
Hattusilis told his assembly, “May your clan be one, like that of the wolves!” As dogs<br />
they are eager and faithful beyond words. Wild wolves have even suckled and raised<br />
human children. No other animal engages man’s feelings so strongly. It has rightly been<br />
said that what links men who love wolves with those who loathe them is the intensity of<br />
their feelings. 14<br />
Wolf-warriors are the best-documented Indo-European warrior style, originating long<br />
before and lasting long after the Indo-European dispersal. They are found far more often<br />
than bear-, boar-, buck-, marten-, horse- or any other animal-warriors. In the second<br />
millennium BC, when our sources begin to flow, wolf-warriors are already well attested.<br />
A Hittite army leader bore the name Lupakku (“Wolf”), and since Indo-European animal<br />
names bespoke strength and luck, he very likely was a wolf-warrior. Likewise the name<br />
of the Hittite Luvians means “Wolf-People”: Hittite texts call them LU-MESH UR-BAR-<br />
RA, “Men-Dog-Outside.” 13<br />
Vedic India too had skin-clad wolf-warriors: Rudra, with his wolves Bhava and Śarva<br />
and with a warband of eleven long-haired Rudriyas, haunted the woods. Other early wolfwarriors<br />
are the mairyo youths of ancient Iran: as a warrior band they were called<br />
“wolves” and fought in a frenzy, though it is not known whether they wore wolfskins.<br />
Scythians also fought as wolf-warriors, some of their youths being “valiant dogs.” 16<br />
Mycenaeans very likely had wolf-warriors. A painted krater from Tiryns of about<br />
1200 BC shows four warriors on foot, two before a chariot and two behind it. All four are<br />
armed with small round shields and javelins much like Egyptian Shardana chariot runners<br />
of the time. “The pointed crests on their heads,” it is said, “may represent a cap-helmet of<br />
some kind”; the tails between their legs are very likely tails of an animal skin. The men<br />
have been taken for tiger-warriors, but there were no tigers in ancient Greece. Indo-<br />
European parallels and Homeric wolf-sympathy suggest that they are wolf-warriors. If so,<br />
wolf-warriors may have played a role in the chariot-based Indo-European expansion of<br />
the mid-second millennium BC. Chariot crews needed runners beside them to capture or
Wolves 13<br />
finish off enemy charioteers. Fleet-footed young wolf-warriors could have played this<br />
tactical role. Some Mycenaeans seem to have had wolf-names. 17<br />
Homer too tells of wolf-warriors. He sees heroes such as Hector, Diomedes, and<br />
Achilles as at times overcome by fighting madness; that is, in the throes of “wolfishness,”<br />
a state akin to berserk recklessness. Speed, stealth, and fighting madness characterized<br />
Greek wolf-warriors, but Achilles’ captains flaunted wolfishness also as a leadership<br />
quality:<br />
Hungry as wolves that rend and bolt raw flesh,<br />
hearts filled with battle-frenzy that never dies—<br />
off on the cliffs, ripping apart some big antlered stag<br />
they gorge on the kill till all their jaws drip red with blood,<br />
then down in a pack they lope to a pooling, dark spring,<br />
their lean sharp tongues lapping the water’s surface,<br />
belching bloody meat, but the fury, never shaken,<br />
builds inside their chests though their glutted bellies burst—<br />
so wild the Myrmidon captains…<br />
In Sparta, warrior training was the work of Lykurgos, the “Wolf-Worker.” Lykurgos laid<br />
down a law that for a year (the “Krypteia”) young warriors must hide and live outside<br />
society, fending for themselves as naked, lone wolves. Elsewhere in Greece, Apollo the<br />
Wolf-God presided over the training of young warriors. 18<br />
Indo-European tribesmen brought the wolf-warrior style to Italy as well as Greece.<br />
Vergil says that the warriors who founded Praeneste wore wolf-hoods and fought with<br />
the left foot bare—a sign of skill, toughness, and recklessness. The Hirpi Sorani wolfwarriors<br />
from north of Rome, like later berserks, could not be hurt by fire: very likely<br />
they fought in a trance of ecstacy that made them woundproof. 19<br />
The wolf-warriors of Romulus founded Rome, and centuries later in the battles against<br />
Hannibal the legions still had in their ranks velites, young men who fought in the<br />
forefront and wore wolfskins. 20 As the sight of a wolf was an omen of victory to later<br />
<strong>Germanic</strong> warriors, so it was to early Romans: when a wolf ran through their battle line at<br />
Sentinum in 295 BC, Roman warriors welcomed it with shouts as the winning wolf of<br />
Mars. By the time of Marius, however, Rome had lost her wolf-warriors.<br />
Among Celts in Gaul, wolves, and dogs bred from wolves, enthralled warriors. Celtic<br />
names like Cunopennus, Cunocennus, and Cunobarrus all mean “dog-head” or “wolfhead”;<br />
that is, men who fought with dog or wolf-skins over their heads. Very likely they<br />
looked like the <strong>Germanic</strong> wolf-warriors portrayed on Trajan’s Column. 21<br />
Wolf-warriors on Trajan’s Column<br />
The oldest known <strong>Germanic</strong> wolf-warriors are depicted in scene 36 of Trajan’s Column.<br />
Surprisingly, no twentieth-century archaeologist, historian, or student of <strong>Germanic</strong>
<strong>Ancient</strong> <strong>Germanic</strong> warriors 14<br />
antiquities knew them, even though in 1896 Cichorius in his outstanding commentary on<br />
Trajan’s Column identified the warriors in scene 36 as <strong>Germanic</strong>. 22 Yet they are plain to<br />
see (Figure 1.1).<br />
On the relief, eight soldiers of the emperor’s strike force wear Roman auxiliary<br />
uniforms: knee-breeches, tunics, mailshirts, and neckerchiefs. Their weapon of attack is<br />
the sword, with which Batavi tribesmen were wont to fight and with which, when they<br />
closed in for the shock attack, they stabbed their foes. 23 Unlike other regular auxiliaries<br />
on the Column, however, these men sport strange headgear: four wear openwork<br />
crossband helmets, two wear broad-pawed bearskins, two others narrow-pawed<br />
wolfskins. Most of them are bearded, while most regular soldiers on the Column are<br />
clean-shaven.<br />
The wolfskins and bearskins seen here cover head and shoulders, leaving the arms<br />
free, but one cannot see how far the skins reached down the back, nor whether they still<br />
had tails as did those of Mycenaean and medieval wolf-warriors. Like Herakles, the<br />
warriors on the Column fasten their skins over the chest by crossing and knotting the<br />
animal’s forelegs, whereas wolf-warriors of the Middle Ages wore their wolfskins as<br />
jackets with openings for the arms. It is hard to say whether here the Column artist<br />
modified <strong>Germanic</strong> reality to fit the classical model or whether <strong>Germanic</strong> auxiliaries,<br />
Figure 1.1 <strong>Warriors</strong> on Trajan’s<br />
Column wearing wolfskins, bearskins<br />
and crossband helmets (detail of<br />
Figure 0.2). Photo: Deutsches<br />
Archäologisches Institut, Rome, Inst.<br />
Neg. 71.2685.<br />
when donning mailshirts, changed their wolf-hood jackets to wolf-hoods with crossed<br />
paws.
Wolves 15<br />
Scholars have taken the wolfskin and bearskin wearers in scene 36 for Roman<br />
standard-bearers, since these, too, wore animal skins and mailshirts. Yet the four warriors<br />
are not in the lead and hold no standards but drawn swords. They are not standardbearers.<br />
Wearing mailshirts, they are not legionaries either. Nor, lacking strip armor, are<br />
they antesignani, who sometimes wore bearskin hoods. Their weapons, as we have seen,<br />
mark them as regulars in Roman service, while their wolf- and bear-hoods mark them as<br />
Germani. Being near the emperor, they are, tactically speaking, shock troops in the<br />
emperor’s entourage and could even be part of his guard. 24<br />
As ancient warrior styles were mythological, the wolf-warriors on Trajan’s Column,<br />
together with the bear-warriors, club-wielders, helmet-wearers, and naked berserks of this<br />
scene, are an outstanding addition to our knowledge of <strong>Germanic</strong> mythology. They stock<br />
up what has been called the “relatively bare shelves of German heathen myth proper”<br />
compared to the Icelandic tradition, 25 and thus, for their part, show ancient continental<br />
<strong>Germanic</strong> mythology as the link between earlier Indo-European and later Icelandic<br />
mythology.<br />
Wolf-warriors of northern Europe have also left traces in wolf-standards and wolfshields,<br />
seized by their Roman foes and enshrined as tokens of victory in the Flavian<br />
armilustrium in Rome. Moreover, the famous Gundestrup cauldron, <strong>Germanic</strong> if it<br />
belongs to the third century AD, otherwise Celtic, pictures a wolf presiding over a<br />
warrior initiation; in either case, the cauldron bespeaks the warriors’ wolf-spirit and<br />
nearness to the gods. 26<br />
The wolf- and bear-warriors on Trajan’s Column had forerunners in Emperor<br />
Vitellius’ army thirty years earlier, when pelt-wearing auxiliaries spearheaded the<br />
emperor’s strike force during his march on Rome in AD 69-Racing ahead of the army,<br />
the auxiliaries surged through the streets of the city, scaring people. “A wild show,<br />
frightening with animal skins and huge weapons,” as Tacitus calls it. 27 It was mid-July<br />
when no one wears fur in Rome—unless bound to do so. Vitellius’ warriors could have<br />
worn linen, for the art of weaving flourished in their homeland. Instead they wore<br />
warrior-style furs, no doubt wolfskins and bearskins. 28<br />
In ancient times the whole youth of a tribe or a chosen outcast group may have been<br />
wolf-warriors. Under the more settled conditions of the early Middle Ages, however,<br />
wolf- and bear-warriors were individual champions, often no more than twelve men, at<br />
times in the service of a king. 29 Were the wolf-warriors on Trajan’s Column youthful<br />
tribal troops or individual champions? The Column portrays them wearing mailshirts and<br />
fighting with swords, as they did in the early Middle Ages. Since mailshirts slow men<br />
down, such men would have shared with wolves not so much speed but fierceness, and<br />
Trajan’s wolf-warriors may already have made the transition from youthful tribal<br />
warriors to elite champions.<br />
On the other hand, being troops close to the emperor and on the same level with other<br />
units, Trajan’s wolf-warriors are likely to have been a battlefield force rather than a<br />
handful of champions. <strong>Ancient</strong> battle descriptions mention no wolf-warriors: the most<br />
that we hear is that Germani bore animal standards into battle. Perhaps animal-warriors<br />
were always few, leading others. Yet Greek and Roman authors so rarely describe<br />
northern troops that here the argument from silence counts for little. There is no telling,<br />
then, how many wolf-warriors took the field with Trajan.
<strong>Ancient</strong> <strong>Germanic</strong> warriors 16<br />
Firsthand evidence of wolf sympathy among <strong>Germanic</strong> tribes of Trajan’s time also<br />
comes from names. The earliest known <strong>Germanic</strong> wolf name, one Ulfenus, appears on a<br />
Trajanic inscription from Rimburg near Aachen, followed by one Ulfus, also from<br />
Roman Germany. Some have wondered about the widespread use in Lower Germany of<br />
the Latin name Ulpius, which to German ears sounded like “wolf.” Ulpius is, of course,<br />
Trajan’s name, and for that reason alone would have been widely used in Lower<br />
Germany. But Ulpius also meant “wolf” in older Latin, and the punning name Ulpius<br />
Lupio suggests that the original meaning of Trajan’s name was still understood. Beyond<br />
the Empire’s borders, a second-century runic inscription from Himlingøje in Denmark<br />
names a Widuhu[n]daR (Woodhound—Wolf). Indo-European twin-root names such as<br />
this were aristocratic wish-names: parents hoped their sons would be “wolves.” As with<br />
dragons, people feared wolves, yet stood in awe of them and wanted to be like them. 30<br />
Wilderness, with its animals, is the great background for, and shaper of, human<br />
feelings, giving fulfillment that the twenty-first century seems to be losing. Wolfwarriors,<br />
fighting beside Trajan in the Dacian war, imperial Rome’s greatest military<br />
undertaking, are thus a striking instance of “biophilia,” reminding us of the hold that<br />
wildlife has on the human mind and from which our spirit is woven. 31<br />
Wolf-warriors in the later Roman army<br />
Since we know from Trajan’s Column that <strong>Germanic</strong> wolf-warriors fought in the Roman<br />
army in the first century AD, we may look for them also in the Roman army of the fourth<br />
century, when many of its recruits came from <strong>Germanic</strong> lands beyond the Rhine and the<br />
Danube. Indeed, wolf-warriors turn up in AD 361. In that year Emperor Julian raised<br />
troops among the Franks and Alamanni: six new Auxilia Palatina units in three pairs. He<br />
named one pair “Tubantes-Salii,” after two Frankish tribes. To the other two pairs he<br />
gave non-tribal names: “Grati-Augustei” and “Felices-Invicti.” Of these latter pairs, three<br />
units, and perhaps originally all four, bore images of bucks or wolves on their shields, as<br />
seen in the late-Roman government handbook the Notitia Dignitatum (Figure 1.2). 32<br />
The last two badges of the second row in Figure 1.2 (Grati, Felices), and the last badge<br />
of the third row (Augustei) show wolves or hounds. Such shield badges proclaimed the<br />
units to be wolf- or hound-warriors. By allowing these shield badges, Julian welcomed<br />
wolf-warriors among Rome’s elite troops. Like Trajan, he must have valued their fighting<br />
skills and wanted them to strengthen his army. He may not have known or cared whether<br />
they were warg-wolf outlaws, the youths of a tribe, or the warband of a king: 33 as wolfwarriors,<br />
flaunting wolf-shield badges, they cast dread into the hearts of foes and strength<br />
into their own, for both Romans and Germani knew the fierceness of animal-warriors. 34<br />
Here, as with Trajan’s wolf-warriors, a large number of men was needed: no less than a<br />
thousand men to form three or more Auxilia Palatina units. Perhaps only the leaders were<br />
true wolf-warriors in the medieval sense of champions.<br />
Some of the shield badges in Figure 1.2 may portray hounds rather than wolves, but<br />
the meaning is almost the same. Discipline and loyalty made hounds particularly useful in<br />
fighting. Thracians and Celts bred fighting dogs, war-hounds defended the laager of the<br />
Cimbri, and Pliny the Elder called dogs “the most faithful allies even without pay.” Like<br />
wolves, hounds were symbolic warrior animals and are found as such among Indo-
Wolves 17<br />
Europeans. Several Greek and Celtic warriors wore hound-topped helmets. The tribal<br />
name of the Dacians means “Wolves” or “Hounds”; and, like Sarmatians, they followed<br />
hound-dragon standards. Among <strong>Germanic</strong> nations at the beginning of our era the fiercest<br />
Longobards fought as mad hounds, and aristocratic Lombard hound-warriors are still<br />
known in the Middle Ages. Hence<br />
Figure 1.2 Shield badges of Auxilia<br />
Palatina units in the Notitia<br />
Dignitatum. Drawing after Seeck,<br />
Notitia 1876, 116 (Oc.V).<br />
if some of the shield badges in Figure 1.2 portray hounds, the symbolism is nearly the<br />
same as that of wolves. 35 Shared animal sympathy gave wolf- or hound-warriors a bond<br />
among each other, making them better fighters. 36
<strong>Ancient</strong> <strong>Germanic</strong> warriors 18<br />
Wolves or hounds, Julian welcomed such warriors in the Roman army. To win men<br />
like this for the Auxilia Palatina attack troops, Rome offered them higher pay than<br />
legionaries, less drudgery work—and less discipline. 37<br />
Wolf-Hrocs and the origin of the Alamanni<br />
Julian’s wolf-warriors, raised among Germani along the Rhine, may shed light on the<br />
name of the two earliest known Alamannic kings. Hroc the Elder, who harried Gaul in<br />
AD 260, was long held to be legendary. However, scholars who take written sources<br />
seriously have given him back his rightful place in history. Hroc the Younger, leader of<br />
an Alamannic troop in the army of Constantius Chlorus, lifted Constantine to the throne<br />
in York in AD 306. His name was formerly misread as a meaningless Erocus, but a new<br />
reading of Aurelius Victor’s manuscripts has restored it to Crocus; that is, <strong>Germanic</strong><br />
Hroc. 38<br />
Hroc with a short o means “cape,” or “fur-cape” (English “frock,” German “Frack”<br />
and “Rock”). Since in Old <strong>Germanic</strong> names the simple word often stands for the<br />
compound, Hroc may well stand for the better-known Wolfhroc (“Wolf-Frock”), a<br />
warrior wearing a wolfskin hood and jacket. 39 This is borne out by the parallels of<br />
Trajan’s wolf-warriors and Julian’s wolf-auxilia units, as well as by the name Vidigabius<br />
of a fourth-century Alamannic king that also means “Wolf.” 40 It is further strengthened<br />
by seventh-century metal foils depicting Alamannic leaders as wolf-warriors (Figures 1.3,<br />
1.4) and by the fact that in the eighth century, when we have richer sources, the Alamanni<br />
used wolf-names more widely than other nations. Like Hroc, Indo-European and<br />
<strong>Germanic</strong> kings were often wolf-warriors. 41<br />
<strong>Warriors</strong> could have the same heraldic sign as their leader: wearing a boar-helmet,<br />
Beowulf was a boar-warrior, and so were his followers. Hroc’s Alamannic followers thus<br />
may have been wolf-warriors like their king. Certainly the wolf shield-badges of Julian’s<br />
Auxilla Palatina mean that the men in those units were wolf-warriors, and they are likely<br />
to have been Alamanni. 42<br />
If the Alamanni had wolf-warriors among them, as the above suggests, light falls on<br />
their hitherto unknown myth of origin. Indo-Europeans, Turks, Mongols, and American<br />
Indians alike believed that warlike nations arose from wolf ancestors. Their myths held<br />
that wolf-kings had led them to their homelands, and that as outcasts of mixed origin they<br />
once lived by robbery. This may be the myth of origin of the Alamanni too, for not only<br />
had wolf-warriors and robber-kings led the Alamanni to their homeland in southern<br />
Germany, but the name of the new nation shows that they conform to the other part of<br />
this myth, the mixed origin, as well. The Alamanni, like the heirs of Romulus and Remus,<br />
knew themselves as a people who “came together from everywhere.” They called<br />
themselves “all-men” in contrast to the kindred Iuthungi, whose name means “the [true]<br />
offspring” and who, unlike the Alamanni, claimed that they were not “mixed.” 43<br />
No nation, it has been said, calls itself “mixed.” Yet the word “Alamanni,” which the<br />
new nation took for its name, is the same as that applied to the Romans of Romulus, to<br />
the wolf-warriors who founded Praeneste, and to the Lucani of the fourth century BC:<br />
“mixed, rag-tag.” By calling themselves “mixed,” the Alamanni took pride in their
Wolves 19<br />
robber- and wolf-warrior origin. In line with a time-honored Indo-European myth, they<br />
recalled their founders as wolfish outlaws who raised a new nation. 44<br />
Other <strong>Germanic</strong> tribes, too, claimed to stem from such forebears. Closest to the<br />
Alamanni in this are the Lombards, who as youths likewise left their homes to find new<br />
lands. Paulus Diaconus says:<br />
They were then all youths in their bloom, although very few, since they<br />
had come from one-third only of a not so large island.—They said they<br />
had cynocephali in their army, that is men with dog heads. And among<br />
their foes they spread the tale that these fought very fiercely, drank human<br />
blood, and, if they could not lay their hands on an enemy, drank their own<br />
blood. 45<br />
Lombard hound-warriors can be traced from the beginning of our era to Dante’s great<br />
warrior Can Grande of Verona (1312–1329) and beyond. The myth of youths, sent away<br />
with elite wolf- or hound-warriors to win new lands, still lived at the time of the medieval<br />
Icelandic Volsung saga: Sigi, founder of the Volsungs, is an outlaw wolf, exiled with a<br />
warband with whom he founds a new kingdom. Later Sigmund and Sinfiotli find two<br />
sons of kings (marked as such by their heavy golden wristbands) who lived as wolfwarriors<br />
in the woods, wore wolfskins, and sucked blood from their victims. 46 The myth<br />
still echoes in the Wolfdieterich epic of thirteenth-century Germany. 47<br />
It has been overlooked, so far, that Lombards and Alamanni were wolf- or dogwarriors<br />
precisely because they left their tribes and homelands as young men. That was<br />
an Indo-European and perhaps world-wide custom. 48 In classical Greece, in historical<br />
times, Arcadians had a band of youthful “wolves” living as outcasts. Likewise the Brettii<br />
in southern Italy were young wolfish outcasts of the Lucani (“Wolf-Men”). They too<br />
were “brought-together” herdsmen, mixed with runaway slaves, and lived from robbery<br />
while conquering new land. So were the founders of Praeneste: wolf-warriors who had<br />
lived by robbery before they founded their town and who afterwards stayed wolfwarriors.<br />
All these groups, like Romulus’ youthful wolf-warriors, were bands of young<br />
men, outlaws, banished from their tribes. 49 The myth of the Lombard youths has a close<br />
link with that of the first Romans in that their leaders, Ibor and Agio, were youthful twins<br />
with alliterative names like Romulus and Remus—and like Hengest and Horsa of Anglo-<br />
Saxon tradition. We hear nothing of the Alamanni being youths or having twin leaders—<br />
the details of their myth are lost—but with their “come-together” origin, their wolfwarriors,<br />
and their living by robbery, they seem indeed to have shared this type of myth. 50<br />
Caesar tells how such bands of raiders got together:<br />
Robbery is no shame if done beyond the borders of the tribe, and they say<br />
they do it to train the young and to lessen the sloth. And when one of the<br />
leaders in an assembly says that he would lead, and that those who wanted<br />
to follow should say so, those who find the plan and the man good rise up.<br />
They promise their help and the crowd praises them; those of them who<br />
afterwards do not follow are held deserters and traitors, and no one trusts<br />
them in anything any more. 51
<strong>Ancient</strong> <strong>Germanic</strong> warriors 20<br />
To get more men for such a band, a leader might recruit outside the tribe too. Tacitus<br />
says, and Bede confirms, that whenever war broke out between <strong>Germanic</strong> nations, young<br />
noblemen flocked to join in. But not only athelings gathered around warlike leaders: riffraff,<br />
even outlaws, did so too, and were welcome, as in the cases of Romulus and Remus,<br />
the Lucani, or Celtic and <strong>Germanic</strong> warbands. 52<br />
The “All-Men” name of the Alamanni gave rise in the nineteenth century to a belief<br />
that they had been a confederation somewhat like the Germany that had arisen from the<br />
Napoleonic wars. But “all-men” does not imply a federation. Instead, it suggests warriors<br />
come together from everywhere, individually and in groups, for raiding. Some groups<br />
may have come with their own leaders, whence by the mid-fourth century the Alamanni<br />
had many kings. 53 The fact that their “come-together” origin became the basis of their<br />
name suggests that the myth of the Alamanni’s origin paralleled that of Rome, as their<br />
wolf-warrior kings paralleled Romulus.<br />
The Gutenstein wolf-warriors<br />
Unlike <strong>Germanic</strong> wolf-warriors of antiquity who escaped the attention of historians<br />
throughout the twentieth-century, those of the early Middle Ages, known from<br />
archaeological and literary sources, have always been in sight. Yet they need to be better<br />
understood.<br />
Of several early medieval wolf-warrior images that have come to light in Alamannia<br />
and Bavaria, the most revealing is embossed on the upper part of a silver foil that covered<br />
the seventh-century scabbard found at Gutenstein. Less than half of the die-impression is<br />
preserved (Figure 1.3). 54<br />
The image shows a wolf-warrior with a very large sword and a spear. His wolf-hood,<br />
unlike those on Trajan’s Column, hides the warrior’s head altogether. Since this is so on<br />
other medieval images too (Figures 1.6 and 1.7), it seems to have been the way wolfhoods<br />
were worn at the time.<br />
Parallel lines on the warrior’s head, back, and tail mark fur, while the curved, dotted<br />
band running down the chest toward the tail represents the hem of the pelt. A band<br />
fastens the hood around the warrior’s neck. As the wolf-skins on Trajan’s Column cover<br />
no more than half the warriors’ backs, the same seems to be true of the Gutenstein<br />
warriors. The tail, beginning at the height of the warrior’s hip, suggests that the skin ends<br />
there; indeed, a wolfskin of natural length would stretch not much further than a warrior’s<br />
hip. 55<br />
The warrior’s shoes bend upward at the tip and swell in a ring at the ankle, features<br />
known from other seventh-century shoes. Faint lines indicate narrow trouser legs. The<br />
arms seem bare. On the Ekhammar bronze, discussed on pp. 33–4 (Figure 1.7), the pelt<br />
hood has openings for the arms, and that may be the case on the Gutenstein scabbard<br />
also, though the openings are not seen.
Wolves 21<br />
Figure 1.3 Seventh-century silver<br />
scabbard from Gutenstein, Baden-<br />
Württemberg. Antikensammlung,
<strong>Ancient</strong> <strong>Germanic</strong> warriors 22<br />
Staatliche Museen zu Berlin—<br />
Preussischer Kulturbesitz, Museum für<br />
Vor- und Frühgeschichte Berlin-<br />
Charlottenburg (Kat/Inv. IIc, 2830);<br />
Museum photograph, Neg. Nr.<br />
Unverzagt 69.<br />
Since the square dots on the chest and below the hip mark material other than fur, the<br />
Gutenstein warrior must have worn a shirt or a hauberk beneath his wolf-hood. A<br />
hauberk is more likely, for the ring on the pommel of his sword marks the Gutenstein<br />
warrior as of the highest rank, and such men wore hauberks. Like the auxiliary cuirasses<br />
on Trajan’s Column, most hauberks in seventh-century Alamannia were made of chain<br />
mail; and like the mailshirts used after the mid-third century in the Roman army, they<br />
were knee- rather than waist-length. However, a few of the highest-ranking Alamanni<br />
warriors, such as those buried at Niederstotzingen, wore lamellar cuirasses, and so, it<br />
seems, does the Gutenstein warrior. If Alamannic wolf-warriors matched the mythical<br />
hero on the Gutenstein scabbard, they were even better armored than Trajan’s wolfwarriors:<br />
56 in the seventh century armies were smaller and more elite, turning into feudal<br />
armies with elite weapons. 57<br />
There is another wolf-warrior on the Gutenstein scabbard, standing in the lower right<br />
corner at a right angle to the length of the scabbard. Only one fourth of him is preserved:<br />
his two feet, the lower part of his hauberk, his wolf-tail, and the blade of his spear. There<br />
is enough, however, to suggest that this left-facing warrior belonged to a scene like that<br />
of Woden and the wolf-warrior on the Torslunda die (Figure 1.6).<br />
Scholars who have examined the Gutenstein scabbard before the Russians stole it in<br />
1945, observed that the silver foil is of one piece. 58 Since the foil shows only one-fourth<br />
of this second warrior, and since he stands at a right angle to the upper one, scholars<br />
thought that the foil once served some other purpose—perhaps as a cover of a box or a<br />
bowl. But neither box nor bowl can use upright figures at right angles to each other. The<br />
reason for the cutoff figure is much simpier: having cut the scabbard cover out of a piece<br />
of silver foil, the craftsman used several dies to emboss it, though each die only in part.<br />
This is most evident for the six small patterns in the middle of the scabbard, but it is also<br />
true for the two wolf-warrior figures. 59<br />
Since the upper, right-facing wolf-warrior was to be the main image on the scabbard,<br />
the craftsman placed it upright near the top. All he wanted was the warrior himself, so he<br />
cut off most of the decorative square below the warrior. Further down the scabbard the<br />
artist needed a die that gave him a cross as the main feature. For this he used another<br />
wolf-warrior die, one with a left-facing warrior. What mattered here was the cross, not<br />
the warrior, hence most of the warrior is cut off: with the edge-covers in place, the<br />
scabbard showed next to nothing of this second warrior. Since both wolf-warriors are so<br />
much alike, their dies seem to have formed a corresponding pair. Both having the same<br />
size and dress, and both holding spears and leaning slightly forward, the two warriors are<br />
clearly counterparts to each other. The right-facing warrior, therefore, once stood, like the<br />
left-facing one, above two decorative square fields.<br />
Trying to reconstruct the original two dies, one notices that the wolf-warrior scenes<br />
occupied broader fields than the crosses below them. This can be seen from the fact that
Wolves 23<br />
if the right-hand border of the decorative field under the right-facing warrior continued<br />
straight up, it would cut off the ring on the sword pommel. What at first may appear to be<br />
the border at the right of this warrior is slanting so much that it must have been the spear<br />
of a figure standing before the wolf-warrior, a figure like a mirror image of the dancing<br />
Woden on the Torslunda die (Figure 1.6). 60<br />
In reconstructing the overall shape of the Gutenstein wolf-warrior dies, one must take<br />
into account the fact that the border at each warrior’s back is tilted forward on the ground<br />
line. Both dies thus tapered toward the top, and therefore, like the Torslunda dies, were<br />
made to produce decorations for curved surfaces. Since their motif is warfare they were<br />
no doubt used for decorating objects used in warfare, in this case helmets, for similar<br />
tapering scenes decorated seventh-century Vendel helmets. 61<br />
If each Gutenstein wolf-warrior followed another figure—as does the Torslunda wolfwarrior<br />
(Figure 1.6)—then the Gutenstein scenes had the same size as other scenes on<br />
Vendel helmets. Applied to a helmet, the decorative fields below the Gutenstein warriors<br />
would result in a double decorative band along the base. Since the helmet from grave 12<br />
at Vendel has just such a band, the decorative fields on the Gutenstein dies also point to<br />
their use for decorating Vendel-style helmets. I would therefore reconstruct the<br />
Gutenstein scenes as in Figure 1.4. 62<br />
Vendel helmets are, so far, known only from Scandinavia and England. None has<br />
come to light in Alamannic lands yet, but they could well have been made and worn<br />
there. Indeed, during the sixth and seventh centuries, Swedish and Alamannic art is so<br />
closely linked that one may anticipate the finding of Vendel helmets among the<br />
Alamanni. 63<br />
The reconstruction of the Gutenstein dies (Figure 1.4) differs from an earlier one<br />
suggesting that the two warriors should flank Woden on each side in a single, centered,<br />
three-figure scene. Vendel helmets, however, have no such centered, three-figure scenes.<br />
Instead they display corresponding two-figure scenes on the left and right front panels. Of<br />
these, the Torslunda wolf-warrior die (Figure 1.6) is a very close parallel to the leftfacing<br />
Gutenstein warrior. Our reconstruction of the Gutenstein panels is therefore<br />
modeled after that die. 64<br />
A clue to the meaning of the Gutenstein scenes is the right-facing wolf-warrior who<br />
bows his head, drops his spear, and (with outsize thumb) offers his sword to Woden. The<br />
god, if one may judge from the way he holds the spear, dances the war dance, spurring on<br />
the warrior. 65<br />
The image of Woden dancing before a wolf-warrior, found also on the Obrigheim foil<br />
and on the Torslunda die (Figures 1.5, 1.6), must have
<strong>Ancient</strong> <strong>Germanic</strong> warriors 24<br />
Figure 1.4 The Gutenstein dies<br />
reconstructed. Drawing by author.<br />
conveyed a widely known meaning and an essential role of Woden. If the Gutenstein<br />
wolf-warrior scenes decorated Vendel-type helmets, they are likely to depict warriors or<br />
champions coming to battle. All Vendel helmets decorated with such scenes show<br />
warriors, sometimes five and more of the same kind, going or riding to a battle that is<br />
shown symbolically on front of the helmet as war dance (Sutton Hoo), bear-binding<br />
(Vendel 1), war dance and bear-binding (Valsgärde 7), or champions fighting (Vendel<br />
14). 66 The Gutenstein wolf-warriors thus are likely to be champions going to battle (leftfacing)<br />
or joining a warband by offering their weapons (right-facing), warbands often<br />
being raised from high-ranking warriors. 67 What speaks for this latter interpretation is the<br />
row of warriors depicted on the helmet of Vendel grave 14, all of whom offer their<br />
swords and who, being many, cannot be heroes known by name, nor gods, for whom it is<br />
not fitting to offer their weapons in token of subordination. 68 The Gutenstein wolfwarriors,<br />
in short, were champions joining the helmet owner’s warband and going to<br />
battle. 69<br />
The Gutenstein and Obrigheim foils, like the Torslunda die (Figures 1.3–1.6), show<br />
wolf-warriors to be Woden-worshipers. As such they could hope to reach Valhalla after<br />
death and become heroes fighting on Woden’s side in the last battle at Ragnarök when<br />
Woden himself might fight as a wolf-warrior. Their life and warriordom thus was<br />
cosmically and mythologically meaningful. 70 It is nevertheless unlikely that the<br />
Gutenstein wolf-warrior following Woden and offering his sword is a fallen warrior who<br />
joins the god of death, for it seems untoward for a leader to advertise on his helmet that<br />
death is in store for his men. 71 Self-dedication to Woden by no means meant imminent<br />
death. 72
Wolves 25<br />
As said before, wolf-names were characteristic of Alamanni warriors. This may have<br />
to do with their coming to southern Germany as youthful bands of wolf-warriors—the<br />
myth of their origin is likely to have been told for centuries and may have strengthened<br />
their anti-Roman and heathen stance. Names like Wolfhroc (Woif-Frock”), Wolfhetan<br />
(“Wolf-Hide”), Isangrim (“Grey-Mask”), and Scrutolf (“Garb-Wolf”) speak of wolfwarrior<br />
dress and wolf-hood, while Wolfgang (“Wolf-Gait”) and Wolfdregil (“Wolf-<br />
Runner”) stress the gait of warriors going to battle. 73 That gait can hardly have meant<br />
speed of onrush, for wolf-warriors now wore hauberks that slow a man down. They may<br />
have moved like wolves in other ways. The name Vulfblaic (“Wolf-Dancer”) suggests<br />
that wolf-warriors did their own war dance, whether at ancestor festivals or when battles<br />
began. If they danced wolf-like or in wolf-gait, they may, like Dolon, have mimicked<br />
walking on all fours: the Greek name Lykormas (“Wolf-Gait”) also points to wolfwarriors<br />
stepping like wolves. However they moved, one may say, with Mircea Eliade,<br />
that “he who …could rightly imitate the behavior of animals—their gait, breathing, cries,<br />
and so on—found a new dimension of life: spontaneity, freedom, ‘sympathy’ with all the<br />
cosmic rhythms…ecstacy could…well be obtained by choreographic imitation of an<br />
animal.” This may be one root of the wolf war dance, the other being representation of<br />
wolf-warrior ancestors. From such twin ecstacy it is but a small step to mad attacks. 74<br />
The ring on the sword pommel of the right-facing Gutenstein warrior shows that wolfwarriors<br />
had lords or even kings in their ranks. Woden was the god of kings, and widely<br />
worshiped among <strong>Germanic</strong> nations that fought their way into new homelands: Goths,<br />
Lombards, and Anglo-Saxons. With their strong Woden worship—Gutenstein means<br />
“Wodenstone”—the Alamanni fit into this picture. Their wolf shield badges discussed on<br />
pp. 20–2 suggest that they worshiped Woden already by the fourth century AD. 75 It was<br />
known that many Alamanni stayed heathen until the seventh century. 76 Now the<br />
Gutenstein wolf-warriors show that even though Alamannia belonged to the nominally<br />
Christian Merovingian kingdom, warband leaders still could, throughout the sixth<br />
century, not only follow the old religion but flaunt it on their helmets of precious metal.<br />
When the Alamanni became Christian, wolf-names no longer marked men as Woden<br />
worshipers. But for centuries to come, such names still bespoke a warrior ethos. Names<br />
such as Lingulf, Horscolf, Adrulf, Haistulf, Aistulf, Trasulf, Grasulf, Zangrulf, Biterolf,<br />
Gradolf, Freki, Friculf, Leidulf and Agiulf, meant Fast, Battle-Mad, Hissing, Raging,<br />
Biting, Greedy, Bold, Hated, and Frightful Wolf. 77<br />
Wolf-warriors are known also from Bavaria. Two masked men on a silvered, seventhcentury<br />
strap-end from Oberwarngau are wolf-warriors (Figure 11.4). 78 The strap-ends<br />
come from belts that gave their wearers strength and that often bore “Heilsbilder” images<br />
guarding the wearer and bringing him luck. Another Bavarian strap-end, almost a twin to<br />
the one described and hence used in the same ceremonies, shows followers of Woden in<br />
the twindragon headgear. In seventh-century Bavaria, as in Alamannia and Sweden, wolfwarriordom<br />
thus went hand in hand with Woden-worship. Since elaborate belt fittings<br />
were insignia of rank and made at court, they broadcast the Woden-worship and wolfwarriordom<br />
of the Dukes of Bavaria. And like the Alamanni, their relatives, the<br />
Bavarians, bore wolf-warrior names. 79<br />
About the Franks we know less. In the fourth century AD, Libanius called wolfish<br />
battle madness the outstanding trait of Frankish warriors. In or shortly after AD 497,<br />
however, the Merovingian Franks became Christian, and Frankish wolf-warriordom
<strong>Ancient</strong> <strong>Germanic</strong> warriors 26<br />
began to whither away. Writing about the endless fighting of southern and western<br />
Franks during the sixth century, Bishop Gregory of Tours never mentions wolf-warriors.<br />
Yet he does speak of a Duke Chedinus, whose name, like Alamannic Wolfhetan and<br />
Nordic Ulfheðin, means “animal-hooded warrior.” In Chedinus, as in Hroc, the simple<br />
word stands for the compound (here very likely Wolfhedin). Though by AD 590 his<br />
name no longer bound Chedinus to Woden, it echoes wolf-warriordom among Franks, of<br />
which we otherwise knew next to nothing, were it not for Pope Gregory the Great who in<br />
AD 597 railed against Frankish cultic sacrifices done by men wearing animal heads. 80<br />
A seventh-century silver foil found at Obrigheim in the Palatinate may also be<br />
evidence of Frankish wolf-warriors and Woden-worship (Figure 1.5). 81<br />
Figure 1.5 Wolf-warrior offering his<br />
sword to Woden. Silver foil from<br />
Obrigheim, Pfalz. Drawing after<br />
Böhner, “Eschwege” 1991, 717, fig.<br />
29.<br />
On this foil, as on the Gutenstein scabbard, a wolf-warrior stands facing right, head<br />
bowed, offering his sword and laying down his spear. Woden, wearing power belt and<br />
headdress (perhaps the lone-dragon headdress as on the Års medallion, Figure 11.2)<br />
dances before him, as he does before the right-facing Gutenstein warrior. 82 The traces<br />
further right are too faint to interpret. Measuring only 1.75 by 3.5 cm, the Obrigheim foil<br />
is too small for use on a Vendel helmet—perhaps it once decorated the browband of a<br />
Spangenhelm or a lamellar helmet, where centered scenes belong. 83 Whether from a<br />
helmet or not, the Obrigheim foil suggests that heathen warbands still existed in Francia<br />
west of the Rhine around AD 600, which would be well in accord with what we<br />
otherwise know of the Franks’ slow conversion to Christianity. 84<br />
No Anglo-Saxon wolf-warriors have come to light yet, though such men doubtless<br />
bestrode the battlefields of heathen England. In England wolf-sympathy was strong, as<br />
can be seen from the royal insignia of Sutton Hoo (the golden wolf on the king’s staff;<br />
the hero between two wolves on the king’s purse) and from the warriors’ expectation that
Wolves 27<br />
wolves would howl before battle. 85 To Vedic Indians the wolf was the animal of Rudra,<br />
to Romans the animal of Mars, to Germani the animal of Woden. This is why Geri and<br />
Freki, the wolves at Woden’s side, also glowered on the throne of the Woden-sprung<br />
Anglo-Saxon kings. Wolf-warriors, like Geri and Freki, were not mere animals but<br />
mythical beings: as Woden’s followers they bodied forth his might, 86 and so did wolfwarriors.<br />
Wolf-warriors in the north<br />
In the north, where heathen religion flourished longest, the wolf-warrior style lasted<br />
longer than elsewhere and is known best. From Torslunda on the Swedish island of Öland<br />
comes a seventh-century bronze die that was used to emboss decorative images on metal<br />
foils for Vendel helmets (Figure 1.6). 87<br />
On the Torslunda die Woden, marked by his one eye, dances, wearing twin-dragon<br />
headgear. It is not a helmet, for the “horns” clearly end in bird heads or snake heads, and<br />
the left dragon also has a neckring. 88 The pointed “flaps” at the bottom of the headgear<br />
might be the tails of the two dragons or else tresses of the god like those on the bracteate<br />
amulets. The twin dragons do not derive from Mercury’s (= Woden’s) caduceus staff but<br />
rather from “horned” helmets such as those found at Viksø in Denmark, Woden wears<br />
this headgear for the war dance. 89 The scene looks like a detail of the battle shown on the<br />
Oseberg wall-hanging (Figure 11.5), where Woden and his animal warriors lead the<br />
shield wall of the warriors at Bråvalla. Its meaning thus may be “Woden leads the wolfwarrior<br />
to battle.”<br />
Roused by Woden’s dance, the wolf-warrior beside him draws his sword, not, as has been<br />
said, to threaten the god but to follow him, for both move in the same direction, not<br />
against each other, and the spear of the wolf-warrior avoids the dancer’s foot. Only the<br />
god dances, not the wolf, hence the god rouses the warrior. Perhaps the wolf-warrior too<br />
will begin to dance, as the warrior name Vulfolaic (Wolf-dancer) suggests. 90<br />
The wolf-warrior bears on his shoulder a very short and very thick, aristocratic spear<br />
like that of the war leaders Egil and Thorolf, described in Egils saga as only three feet<br />
long. Woden seems to wield more regular weapons whose lengths reach beyond the<br />
frame of the scene: a heavy lance and a lighter throwing spear, as do other war dancers. 91<br />
The wolf-pelt worn by the Torslunda warrior, like that of the Gutenstein warriors, does<br />
not reach his knees: a horizontal line, rising toward the tail, sets the fur off from the<br />
hauberk underneath. Like the medieval wolf-masks from Gutenstein and Ekhammar, the<br />
one from Torslunda fully masks the warrior but bares the wolf’s teeth, the signal among<br />
wolves that they are ready to fight. Unlike the meek right-facing Gutenstein warrior, the<br />
left-facing Torslunda wolf follows Woden into battle, as shown by his drawing his sword<br />
and baring his teeth (as in Figure 1.7).
<strong>Ancient</strong> <strong>Germanic</strong> warriors 28<br />
Figure 1.6 Woden with twin-dragon<br />
headgear followed by a wolf-warrior<br />
drawing his sword. Bronze die from<br />
Torslunda, Öland. Statens Historiska<br />
Museen, Stockholm, inv. no. 4325;<br />
photograph ATA.<br />
The Torslunda image, so much like that from Gutenstein, shows that, in the sixth and<br />
seventh centuries, heathen <strong>Germanic</strong> countries from Alamannia to Sweden shared the<br />
same art, especially in Vendel-helmet decoration; very likely they were also linked by<br />
marriage bonds among the leading families. Wolf-warrior names like Hetan/Hedin and<br />
Wolfhetan/Ulphedan further link Alamannic wolf-warriors to those in Scandinavia.<br />
Names as well as images thus show that northern and southern <strong>Germanic</strong> lands shared<br />
warrior styles and heroic myths. 92<br />
Like Alamannic and Bavarian wolf-warriors, Norse úlfheðnar were Woden’s men,<br />
hence whoever joined a wolf-band became not a mere wolf but a mythical being, reliving<br />
the time when the gods walked on earth. Any fierce warrior might be a “wolf,” but a true<br />
wolf-warrior wore a wolfskin and howled like a wolf to meld with the beast. 93<br />
The eighth-century Old English poem Deor speaks of Heodeningas, and the Widsith<br />
has Heoden ruling Glomman (Barkers). Heodeningas or Hiadnings were thus dog- and<br />
wolf-warriors who followed Heoden, the king in a dog- or wolf-hood. In his thirteenthcentury<br />
Prose-Edda, Snorri Sturluson refers to great warriors as Hiadnings, who until the
Wolves 29<br />
end of the world fight daily, while each night Hilde brings the dead to life again. This is<br />
so close to Woden’s einheriar warband in Valhalla that Hiadnings and einheriar blend<br />
into each other. In a sense, then, Hiadning wolf-warriors are Woden’s einheriar, the ones<br />
he chose to be with him when the world ends. 94 A fifth-century bracteate amulet shows<br />
Woden in the last battle, at Ragnarök, wearing a wolf-helmet. 95<br />
For tenth-century Norway the skald Eyvind Skaldaspillir attests wolf-warriors with his<br />
line: “This hero bore the grey wolf-cape in the one-eyed’s storm.” 96 The “one-eyed’s<br />
storm” is a kenning—an Old Norse compound expression—for battle. Wolf-warriors as<br />
the champions of Nordic kings may reflect Woden’s bond with his wolf-warriors.<br />
Outside the <strong>Germanic</strong> area, wolf-warriors likewise survived into the Middle Ages.<br />
Judging from their names, Irish warriors wore wolfskins. A Pictish dog-warrior is carved<br />
on a ninth-century stone slab in Scotland. Slavs and Lithuanians also had wolf-warriors.<br />
All of Europe beyond the reach of Rome and Christianity upheld its Indo-European<br />
heritage of wolf- and dog-warr iordom. 97<br />
Sigmund the wolf-warrior and dragon-slayer<br />
Bronzes, garments, weavings, warrior names, and sagas tell of wolf-warriors in heathen<br />
Scandinavia. A tenth-century bronze figurine from a grave at Ekhammar/Kungsängen,<br />
Sweden, though only about 3 cm high, offers a wealth of detail (Figure 1.7). 98<br />
Found some 30 kilometers northwest of Stockholm, the figurine is from the heartland of<br />
heathen Sweden. As with the wolf-warriors from Gutenstein and Torslunda, the man’s<br />
pelt jacket is shorter than the shirt or hauberk underneath. His jacket has openings for the<br />
arms, and its lower hem ends in a short tail. The wolfskin thus matches the definition of<br />
heðinn—“a sleeveless, short cape with a fur hood”—that underlies the Norse term for<br />
wolf-warrior, úlfheðinn. The heðinn on the Ekhammar bronze has the same cut, open in<br />
front, as the wolf-hoods from Gutenstein and Torslunda. The tail is rather short for a<br />
wolfskin, but it might have broken off or run along the warrior’s right leg. 99 The wolf’s<br />
teeth are bared as for attack.<br />
Does the Ekhammar warrior shake a spear in his right hand, as has been said? A close<br />
look shows that he does not. The “spear” is an ormr, a wingless, footless dragon-snake,<br />
its mouth clearly marked. The bend in the warrior’s long arm is his elbow, as in the<br />
images of the Gutenstein and Torslunda wolf-warriors. His arm therefore ends at the<br />
lower right corner of his frock. In his right hand he holds a sword, stabbing at the<br />
dragon’s belly. Under magnification, the sword shows a cross near the tip of the blade, a<br />
heathen symbol found also on bracteate amulets of about AD 500 and, as we have seen,<br />
on the Gutenstein scabbard (Figure 1.3). 100
<strong>Ancient</strong> <strong>Germanic</strong> warriors 30<br />
Figure 1.7 Sigmund (?), fighting the<br />
worm. Bronze figurine from<br />
Ekhammar, Uppland. Statens<br />
Historiska Museen, Stockholm;<br />
photograph ATA, Nils Lagergren.<br />
Images like this one are likely to portray mythical heroes, and one thinks here of<br />
Sigurd, the dragon-slayer of the north. However, most pictures of Sigurd’s dragon fight<br />
show him piercing the “worm” from underneath, as in the Eddic Fáfnismál. The<br />
Ekhammar figurine, then, is hardly Sigurd. But there is another mythic dragon fighter of<br />
the north, Sigmund, whose feat is told in the eighth-century Beowulf as follows:<br />
Sigmund’s brave deeds, many a strange thing, the strife of Wael’s son, his<br />
wide wanderings, feuds and foul doings of which the children of men<br />
knew nothing—only Fitela with him to whom he would tell all, the uncle<br />
to his nephew, for they were always friends in need in every fight. Many<br />
tribes of giants they laid low with their swords. For Sigmund there sprang<br />
up after his death-day no little glory, after he, bold in battle, had killed the<br />
wyrm, keeper of the hoard: under the grey stone the atheling’s son had<br />
ventured alone, a daring deed, nor was Fitela with him. Yet it turned out
Wolves 31<br />
well for him so that his sword went through the wondrous worm and stuck<br />
in the wall, doughty iron: the dragon died of the murdering stroke. 101<br />
Since Sigmund’s sword stuck in the wall of the cave, he must have stabbed the dragon<br />
when both were standing upright—just as the Ekhammar bronze shows it. What makes it<br />
almost certain that the Ekhammar figurine represents Sigmund is the hero’s wolf-hood.<br />
Of all dragon-slayers only Sigmund was also a wolf-warrior. Heretofore we had only one<br />
medieval image of Sigmund, the one from Winchester that shows him biting the wolf’s<br />
tongue. Now, it seems, we have an image of him as dragon-slayer, accomplishing his<br />
most famous deed. What is new is that, in this version of the myth, Sigmund slew the<br />
dragon while he was a wolf-warrior; that is, at a time of ecstatic strength and fearlessness.<br />
Heroic myth clearly held wolf-warriors in high regard, both in words and pictures. 102<br />
Sigmund could well be portrayed in the tenth century, for just then the Eiriksmál has<br />
Sigmund and Sinfiotli at Woden’s behest welcome outstanding newcomers to Valhalla. 103<br />
As the Gutenstein, Obrigheim, and Torslunda wolf-warriors worshiped Woden, so did<br />
the warrior of the Ekhammar grave, for a bronze statuette of Woden lay in the same<br />
grave. 104 It follows that the wolf-warriors’ bond with Woden, known among the<br />
Lombards a thousand years earlier, still held good in the tenth century. 105 Snorri<br />
Sturluson in the thirteenth century thus did not “mythologize” bear- and wolf-warriors—<br />
they had always been Woden’s men. 106<br />
Beowulf calls Sigmund’s and Sinfiotli’s deeds foul as well as fair, the Volsung saga<br />
portrays the two as outlaws living in the woods by robbery, and Wolfdieterich in the<br />
thirteenth century likewise does both good and bad. The old Indo-European notion that<br />
warriors bear a burden of sin was thus still alive in northern Europe through most of the<br />
Middle Ages. So was the custom of sending young men as wolves into the wilds for<br />
training in survival and conquest of new land. Sigi, Sigmund’s grandfather, was such a<br />
wolf-warrior guided by Woden. Sigmund and Sinfiotli are thus true-to-type wolfwarriors:<br />
of ambiguous morals, boundless strength, and fierceness in battle. They were<br />
also men to whom Woden’s presence brought the power and magic that was in the<br />
beginning. 107<br />
Wolf-warriors in Icelandic sagas<br />
Wolf-warriors fought in 1030 in the battle at Stiklastad, says the Helgisaga Óláfs<br />
konungs Haraldssonar:<br />
Thorir Hound and his men, twelve altogether, fought in front of their<br />
troops, unarmored, wearing wolf-skin coats… And men say that Björn the<br />
Stout hewed with his sword at Thorir that day. Yet wherever he aimed, his<br />
sword failed to bite as though its edge had been turned. For Thorir and his<br />
men were in those wolf-skin coats which a Finn had made with great<br />
magic. When Björn saw that his sword did not bite, he called to the king<br />
and said: “The weapon does not bite the dogs.” “Then beat the dogs,” said<br />
the king. Then Björn took a huge club and clobbered Thorir Hound so that<br />
he fell down and ever after had his head tilted to one side. And then he
<strong>Ancient</strong> <strong>Germanic</strong> warriors 32<br />
leaped up and thrust Björn through with his spear and said: “This is how<br />
we bite bears in the northland woods.” 108<br />
In Snorri Sturluson’s version the king said: “Strike down the dog on whom steel takes no<br />
effect.” The belief that wolf-warriors cannot be hurt by steel or fire comes perhaps from<br />
their being confused with berserks, as they were by this time. 109 But the belief may be<br />
much older, for the Hirpi Sorani, Italic wolf-warriors, could also walk on fire. If so, wolfwarriors<br />
were ecstatic fighters all along, as woundlessness comes from ecstasy. That the<br />
Longobard dog-warriors drank blood makes them, too, ecstatic fighters, for in Icelandic<br />
sagas biting the opponent’s windpipe was a custom of mad wolf-warriors and berserks. 110<br />
Indo-European wolf-warrior youths, as we have seen, wore no armor. On Trajan’s<br />
Column, however, being Roman auxiliaries, they wore armor, and likewise on early<br />
medieval monuments, being leading warriors. Helgi saga, portraying wolf-warriors<br />
unarmored, thus seems to reflect literary imagination of the saga period rather than old<br />
custom, for Thorir Hound and his wolf-warriors too are leading warriors. 111<br />
As long as the ancient religion lasted, wolf-warriors were Woden’s mythic fighters at<br />
the heart of <strong>Germanic</strong> warrior society. Being fearsome fighters, they, like bear-warriors<br />
and berserks, could become a king’s champions. Saxo Grammaticus tells the delightful<br />
story that when Erik came to King Frothi’s hall and sat down with the champions, they<br />
howled like wolves until the king stopped them. 112 Like berserks (with whom they are<br />
sometimes confused), they were often the twelve champions of a king.<br />
When Christianity overthrew Woden worship, wolf-warriordom lost its religious<br />
underpinning. In sagas from the twelfth century and later, wolf-warriors are mad<br />
berserks. “The berserks that were called úlfheðnar wore wolf-pelts for hauberks,” says<br />
the Vatnsdæla saga. Wolf-warriors had become mad fighters who, in the new meaning of<br />
the word berserkir (“bare-shirt”), scorned armor. 113<br />
Northern Europeans nevertheless kept up some of their wolf-warriordom throughout<br />
the Middle Ages, for they lived in the midst of woods teeming with wolves. Their wolfancestor<br />
myths, such as the one in the thirteenth-century Wolfdieterich epic, show the<br />
abiding closeness of man and wolf. Even in modern Europe large packs of wolves still<br />
roamed the woods and ravaged herds, barely kept in check by trap and wolfhound until in<br />
the nineteenth-century public hunts hounded them into extinction. Only now, at the<br />
beginning of the third millennium, when no more than 200,000 wolves are left worldwide<br />
and very few are still on the loose in Europe and North America, do wolves no<br />
longer haunt our dreams. 114
Wolves 33<br />
Figure 1.8 Hundsgugel wolf-helmet of<br />
about AD 1390–1400, from southern<br />
Germany. Photo: Schweizerisches<br />
Landesmuseum, Zürich, Neg. 105 206.<br />
Medieval knights widely upheld a wolf-symbolism. So ingrained was it that in France<br />
alone 1,200 noble families had wolves as their shield badges. Heraldic animals may have<br />
been individual or family symbols, but when so many individuals and families all bore<br />
wolf-badges, the wolf was still a widely shared warrior symbol. Although it was now<br />
only a symbol rather than a means of identification, some of the old closeness to the<br />
animal is likely to have lingered on. A token of this is the striking late-medieval helmet<br />
type called Hundsgugel (hound hood) that looks like a wolf head (Figure 1.8). Wearing it,<br />
early fifteenth-century knights still, in a way, fought as wolves. 115
2<br />
BEARS<br />
A huge bear advanced before King Hrolf’ s men, and<br />
always next at hand where the king was. It killed more<br />
men with its paw than any five of the king’s champions<br />
did. Blows and missiles glanced off from the animal and it<br />
beat down both men and horses.<br />
Hrólfs saga Kraka<br />
Bear-warriors on Trajan’s Column<br />
Bear sympathy is found since the earliest times throughout the northern hemisphere:<br />
among North American Indians, ancient Chinese, and Ugro-Finnish Permians, who in the<br />
first century AD wore bear-hoods with dangling forepaws. Among Indo-Europeans,<br />
however, bear-warriors occur far less often than wolf-warriors. In Europe, bear-warriors<br />
seem to be mostly <strong>Germanic</strong>, for few or none are known among Celtic and Italic tribes.<br />
Scene 36 of Trajan’s Column is the only portrayal we have of ancient European bearwarriors,<br />
and as they march with Trajan’s <strong>Germanic</strong> troops, they are likely to be Germani<br />
too. 1<br />
Scholars have noted the four pelt-hooded warriors in the upper left of scene 36 of<br />
Trajan’s Column (Figures 0.2, 1.1), but have not distinguished the bearskin hoods of the<br />
first two from the wolfskin hoods of the later two. A detail photograph shows how bear-<br />
and wolf-hoods differ (Figure 2.1). 2<br />
The hood on the right in Figure 2.1 has the broad paws and long claws of a bear, while<br />
the one on the left has the narrow paws without claws of a wolf. The other bear-warrior,<br />
not seen here but in Figure 1.1, is less well preserved, but the claws of the crossed paws<br />
of his hood (just above and to the right of the wolf-warrior) leave no doubt that he too is a<br />
bear-warrior. By thus distinguishing between the two types of animal skins, the Column<br />
recognizes two different animal-warrior styles: wolf- and bear-warriors. 3<br />
Like the wolf-warriors in this scene, the bear-warriors are dressed as regular<br />
auxiliaries with standard tunic, knee-breeches, and neckerchief. They are also armed like<br />
auxiliaries, with cuirass, shield, and sword hanging from a baldric.<br />
Moreover, they seem to wear helmets underneath their skin-hoods: a metal band<br />
around the forehead of the first bear-warrior in Figure 1.1 suggests a helmet. Helmets are<br />
equipment of Roman auxiliaries; free Germani rarely wore them. 4
Bears 35<br />
Figure 2.1 Bear- and wolf-warriors,<br />
wearing different pelt hoods (detail of<br />
Figure 0.2). Photo: Deutsches<br />
Archäologisches Institut, Rome, Inst.<br />
Neg. 41.1263, made from the Column<br />
itself, while Figure 1.1 is a photograph<br />
of the plaster cast.<br />
Careful observer that he was, Cichorius saw that unlike the animal heads of Roman<br />
standard-bearers depicted elsewhere on Trajan’s Column, those in scene 36 retain their<br />
lower jaws. Indeed, the lower jaw of the bearskin in Figure 1.1 reaches nearly to the<br />
warrior’s mouth, almost like a cheek guard. The lower jaw of the other bearskin is<br />
somewhat shorter, but it too stretches toward the warrior’s mouth. This is never found in<br />
pictures of Roman standard-bearers or hornblowers: Roman triumphal art—elsewhere on<br />
Trajan’s Column and in the Aurelian panels, for example—always depicts the pelt hoods<br />
of standard-bearers and hornblowers without lower jaws save for a short spur stretching<br />
toward the warriors’ eyes. 5 Retaining the lower jaws of the animal skins in scene 36 must<br />
therefore have been part of the animal-warrior get-up, for northern pelt-hooded warriors<br />
in the early Middle Ages also wore animal skins with lower jaws attached (Figures 1.3–<br />
1.7). Their names and battle fury make it clear that they did this because, unlike Roman<br />
standard-bearers, they were true bear- or wolf-men. 6<br />
Bear- and wolf-pelt battle garb marks Trajan’s men as <strong>Germanic</strong> warriors. Cuirasses<br />
and helmets mark them also as Roman soldiers; that is, auxiliaries recruited in the Roman<br />
provinces of Germany. Archaeological finds support this: a Roman auxiliary helmet<br />
embroidered with bear fur, it seems, has come to light at the Batavian auxiliary fort on<br />
the Kops Plateau at Nijmegen. Germani liked to rework Roman helmets to give them a
<strong>Ancient</strong> <strong>Germanic</strong> warriors 36<br />
wild look or new significance: bear fur on his helmet may have made the wearer feel<br />
bear-like. 7<br />
Another striking fact revealed by scene 36 of the Column is that in AD 101 bear- and<br />
wolf-warriors fought side by side. Bear- and wolf-warriors, as we shall see, fought<br />
alongside each other also in the battle on the Hafrsfjord in Norway in AD 872. The<br />
parallel between the two instances suggests that this was an ancient custom. Perhaps the<br />
pairing enlivened competition: Greeks and Romans paired units to fight side by side so<br />
they would vie with each other for victory and fame. Trajan may have made use of a<br />
traditional <strong>Germanic</strong> pattern for a Roman reason. 8 Perhaps wolves and bears reflected age<br />
sets, and as wolf-warriors were often the young, bear warriors may have been older men.<br />
Wolves and bears together were the kings of the wild and hence of the battlefield. 9<br />
Bear-hooded soldiers in the Roman army<br />
Suddenly and surprisingly in the mid-first century AD, bear-hoods came into use among<br />
regular, non-<strong>Germanic</strong> Roman auxilia. Soon afterward even the legions adopted them. In<br />
several scenes of Trajan’s Column, and in many other works of art from this period, we<br />
see Roman eagle-bearers, standard-bearers, and musicians wearing bear-hoods.<br />
Heretofore unknown in the Roman army, bear-hoods were not a Roman tradition. Where<br />
did they come from, and what did they mean?<br />
P.Couissin believed Rome adopted bear-hoods from her northern neighbors. Roman<br />
soldiers who killed <strong>Germanic</strong> bear-warriors may have stripped off their hoods as trophies<br />
and worn them as badges of bravery. In earlier times, Roman soldiers stripped torcs from<br />
fallen Celts and wore them as trophies; after a while, Roman-made torcs became battle<br />
decorations awarded by Roman commanders. The same may have happened with<br />
<strong>Germanic</strong> animal hoods. 10<br />
Because battle decorations went to the bravest and the bravest became standardbearers,<br />
the latter may have begun to wear a bear-hood over their helmet as a badge of<br />
status. Standing in the middle of the first line in battle, standard-bearers and hornblowers<br />
were well-placed to cow enemy tribesmen by flaunting captured pelt hoods. 11 On parade,<br />
hooded standard-bearers and hornblowers made a splendid show. Perhaps Rome adopted<br />
bear- rather than wolf-hood insignia because bear-warriors were uniquely <strong>Germanic</strong>,<br />
while Rome had once had its own wolf-warriors. 12<br />
If the bear-hoods of Roman standard-bearers originated from trophies, one would<br />
expect them to appear first among auxiliary cohorts on the Rhine, since they were the<br />
first Roman forces to fight <strong>Germanic</strong> bear-warriors. This is indeed where they are found.<br />
The earliest known bear-hooded Roman standard-bearer is Pintaius of cohors V Asturum,<br />
whose gravestone at Bonn dates to the reign of Claudius (41–54). The next one is<br />
Genialis, image-bearer of cohors VII Raetorum, whose gravestone at Mainz dates to the<br />
time of Nero (54–68). 13<br />
In the legions, bear-hooded standard-bearers became known by the time of Vespasian<br />
(69–79). The earliest legionary standard-bearers also served on the Rhine and may have<br />
adopted the custom from the auxilia. Later, legionaries with bear-hoods (and praetorians<br />
with lion-hoods like those of Hercules and Alexander the Great) are met on monuments<br />
of state art from Trajan’s to Marcus Aurelius’ time. Then they disappear. 14
Bears 37<br />
A striking parallel to Rome’s adoption of <strong>Germanic</strong> bear-hoods are the leopard skins<br />
royal Hungarian bodyguards wore at court in Vienna until 1918. They took the custom—<br />
and the first skins—from the bodyguard of the Turkish Grand Vizier whom they<br />
overcame in 1716 under Prince Eugene. The Turkish guard, in turn, may have had the<br />
custom from medieval Georgian knights. 15 The persistence of this custom for several<br />
hundred years neatly parallels that of Roman bear-hood wearers. It also shows the<br />
abidingness of warrior customs the world over. From the Stone Age to the twentieth<br />
century, wearing skins of toothed animals, especially when taken in battle, raised warrior<br />
pride. 16<br />
To be singled out by Romans for trophies, <strong>Germanic</strong> bear-warriors must have been<br />
outstanding fighters—and hence few in number. This may be why Tacitus mentions<br />
neither wolf- nor bear-warriors, and why we learn of no <strong>Germanic</strong> bear-warriors who<br />
may have served in the Roman army after Trajan’s time, even though from amphitheaters<br />
and bear-fight pits, both Romans and Germani knew bears well as grim single fighters. 17<br />
In the later Roman army, <strong>Germanic</strong> field marshals and troops held on to furs as part of<br />
their warrior get-up, not unlike guards today at Buckingham Palace or in the Swedish<br />
Grenadier Watch. At a time when old-fashioned Romans claimed to scorn furs, Emperor<br />
Zeno in Byzantium in 472 took pride in his fur-clad Excubitores guards. Since furs are<br />
too hot for Mediterranean summers, Zeno’s northern warriors seem to have donned their<br />
pelts out of animal sympathy. 18<br />
Bear-warriors in the early Middle Ages<br />
Compared to wolf-warriors, there is less pictorial evidence for bear-warriors in the early<br />
Middle Ages, but there are bear-warrior tales. When in AD 497 or slightly thereafter,<br />
King Clovis of the Franks and his followers became Christians, wolf- and bearwarriordom<br />
among the Franks was stifled, for these fighting styles were bound up with<br />
Woden worship. The more they were Christianized, the more Franks had to forgo the<br />
religious aspects of animal-warrior styles. Yet their fighting customs may have changed<br />
little, for they still fought in a fury, as a certain Ursio did in 587. According to Gregory of<br />
Tours’ “History of the Franks,” King Childebert’s army cornered the rebellious Ursio and<br />
his men in a church on a mountain near Verdun. The king’s men, unable to force their<br />
way into the building, set it afire:<br />
When Ursio saw this, he girt himself with his sword, came out, and began<br />
such a slaughter among the besiegers that none who showed himself<br />
stayed alive. There fell Trudulf, count of the royal palace, and many of<br />
that army were cut down. When Ursio finally tired of the slaughter,<br />
someone hit him in the leg. Weakened, he sank to the ground and, as<br />
others ran up, lost his life.<br />
Ursio’s name means either “Bear-Man” or “Furious One.” Like Woden’s men he seems<br />
to have fought in a trance of madness that gave him uncanny strength and made him<br />
wound-proof for a while, only to be followed by a weakness, as always in such cases.<br />
Perhaps Ursio was only a desperate, cornered man. But Gregory seems to tell the story
<strong>Ancient</strong> <strong>Germanic</strong> warriors 38<br />
because he and his fellow Franks saw Ursio’s deed as the height of life itself. If this was<br />
no longer the ancient bearecstacy, it was close to it. 19<br />
In the Anglo-Saxon poem The Fight at Finnsburg, the sixty warriors with Hnaef are<br />
called sigebeorna, “Victory Bears.” Such appellatives no doubt gave rise to bear-warrior<br />
names. As time went by, however, ancient animal-warrior names lost their meaning<br />
among Anglo-Saxons, Franks, and Saxons. They began to fade from use when warriors<br />
no longer saw themselves as mythical bears and wolves. 20 Northern Europe held<br />
Christianity at bay much longer than the Franks did; hence wolf- and bear-warriors<br />
flourished there until the eleventh century.<br />
In his poem of praise for King Harald Fairhair at the battle on the Hafrsfjord in AD<br />
872 Thorbjorn Hornklofi says that berserks and wolfwarriors began the fight:<br />
Grenjuðu berserkir emjuðu úlfheðnar<br />
guðr vas a sinnum ok ísorn dúðu<br />
Berserks snorted as the battle began, wolf-warriors howled and shook weapons. 21<br />
Since Hornklofi wrote these lines for the king and other eye-witnesses soon after the<br />
battle, they must be close to the truth. But which of the two meanings of berserk did he<br />
have in mind: bare-shirts, the mad fighters of modern usage, or the earlier “bearwarriors”?<br />
The fact that Hornklofi pairs berserkir and úlfheðnar (wolf-warriors) suggests<br />
that both are animal-warriors and that his berserks, as their name says, are bear-warriors.<br />
There was a linguistic reason for this change in the meaning of the word “berserk”:<br />
sometime after the ninth century, the word berr in Old Norse no longer meant “bear” but<br />
only “bare.” 22 To the saga writers, therefore, berserks were “bare fighters” without<br />
hauberks, brynjulausir, “men without mail shirt,” as Snorri Sturluson calls them, while in<br />
earlier times wolf- and bear-warriors did wear hauberks. 23<br />
The howling and snorting of Hornklofi’s warriors also matched their identification<br />
with animals. Wolves, of course, howl, and Hornklofi’s verb emjuðu denotes the howling<br />
of wolves. Attacking bears, on the other hand, snort: they push short bursts of air through<br />
their teeth and open lips. Hornklofi’s grenjuðu seems to mean just that, for the sound of<br />
grenja is that of a broken sword-blade swishing to the ground. In Old Norse prose the<br />
verb grenja is used sixteen times of berserks, five times of swords, twice of bears and,<br />
tellingly, once of breaking waves. Grenja is the English word “to grin, to show one’s<br />
teeth.” It means not to howl but to snort and snarl. Hornklofi’s berserks, snorting like<br />
bears, are therefore in all likelihood “bear-shirts”, that is bear-warriors. 24<br />
The claim that Hornklofi “freely invented” the terms berserkir and úlfheðnar to<br />
describe ecstatic warriors is mistaken. The eighth-century name Wolfhetan makes it clear<br />
that the term úlfheðnar was used for wolf-warriors long before the poem. That the term<br />
berserkir also existed by then is made more than likely by the parallelism of bear- and<br />
wolf-warriors on Trajan’s Column and in Hornklofi’s poem, and by eighth- and ninthcentury<br />
names such as Peragrim (Bear-Mask), Bernhelm, and the Bjarnheðinn. 25 Indeed,<br />
the parallelism between the portrayal of wolf- and bear-warriors on Trajan’s Column and<br />
in Hornklofi’s poem links Trajan’s first-century bear-warriors with medieval<br />
Scandinavian bear-warriors. 26<br />
Bear-names may also reveal something of bear-warrior tactics: the early medieval<br />
German name Perlaic (“Bear-Dancer”) parallels the above-mentioned Vulfolaic (Wolf-<br />
Dancer), and suggests that bear-warriors had their own war dance, imitating bears. As
Bears 39<br />
bear-dance ecstacy is known from North America, ancient China, Siberia, and the<br />
Hittites, the <strong>Germanic</strong> warrior style that derives from it is hardly a Scandinavian<br />
invention, as has been claimed, but a custom inherited from the Stone Age. 27<br />
Hornklofi’s poem portrays wolf- and bear-warriors as the king’s champions and hence<br />
few in number. As such, it seems, they also appear on the Norwegian Oseberg tapestry of<br />
about AD 800. There, in the legendary battle at Bråvalla, two warriors, wearing strange<br />
hoods, stride in the van (Figure 11.5). 28 Strutting ahead while wearing wolf- or bearhoods,<br />
their role as the king’s champions is to lead the warriors of the line, passing on to<br />
them the battle madness of Woden.<br />
Bear-warriors in Icelandic sagas<br />
In the thirteenth century Snorri Sturluson wrote that, of old, Woden’s men in battle<br />
“behaved like mad dogs or wolves…and were strong like bears or bulls.” Snorri called<br />
this behavior berserksgang, which could mean “berserk gait” or “berserk attack.” The<br />
warriors dressed, howled, snorted, strutted, and altogether behaved like bears or wolves,<br />
not only to frighten foes but also because for the fight they felt themselves to be bears<br />
and wolves. 29<br />
Bears on the attack snort, bark hoarsely, and finally clack their teeth. Bear-warriors, as<br />
we saw, snorted (as did berserks). Very likely, therefore, they also barked and clacked<br />
their teeth. The sagas and a twelfth-century chess set from the Isle of Lewis in the Outer<br />
Hebrides tell of a weird custom of biting one’s shield (Figure 5.4). Such biting, done<br />
rapidly, makes a sound like that of bears clacking their teeth before they attack. It is also<br />
much louder than clacking one’s teeth and avoids the chattering that might seem to come<br />
from fear. Not loud enough for a battlefield challenge, shield-biting could nevertheless<br />
put one into a trance. Known only from the time when “berserk” already meant any kind<br />
of reckless warrior, it may nevertheless have been a custom brought about by warriors<br />
who felt themselves to be bears. 30<br />
A warrior who donned an animal hood underwent a thorough transformation. In a<br />
trance-like state he “became” the animal, and like a shaman drew strength from his “spirit<br />
animal.” As a parallel one may cite a Carib from Guyana who said of his tiger-dance: “I<br />
growl, I hiss. I swing the club just like he does when he crushes his prey with one blow of<br />
his terrible claws. And when I have killed my enemy, I must also drink his blood and<br />
taste his flesh so that the spirit that impels me to do this deed will be assuaged …When<br />
the Tiger is in the man, the man becomes like a tiger.” 31<br />
<strong>Warriors</strong> so much changed themselves in this process that their fellows noted it. The<br />
fourteenth-century saga about the heathen Danish King Hrolf tells of such a shape-shift in<br />
graphic detail. While battle engulfed his king, Bothvar Bjarki (“Battle Bear”), his<br />
champion, sat in the hall doing nothing. Yet one “saw a huge bear advance before King<br />
Hrolf’s men and always next at hand where the king was. It killed more men with its paw<br />
than any five of the king’s champions did. Blows and missiles glanced off from it.” When<br />
someone summoned Bothvar Bjarki to the fight, the bear vanished—it had been Bjarki in<br />
changed shape. Bothvar Bjarki is our best medieval example of a warrior becoming a<br />
bear. 32 Like Bothvar Bjarki, bears fight not in packs but alone.
<strong>Ancient</strong> <strong>Germanic</strong> warriors 40<br />
Bears in nature can also fall into a fighting madness, as told in the Irish legend of<br />
CúChulainn and as born out by the Sioux warrior name “The Grizzly bear that runs<br />
without regard.” Bjarki as a bear fought in an ecstacy that gave him more-than-human<br />
strength and made him wound-proof. The bear-warriors’ ecstatic style, like that of Bjarki,<br />
may explain why by the thirteenth century the word “berserk” had come to denote every<br />
kind of mad, fearless fighter. Bothvar Bjarki himself, when he afterwards fought as a<br />
man, did so in the grip of madness. 33<br />
But not all shape-shifts went that far: lesser changes might be no more than a token<br />
shift in dress. What matters most, however, is that animal-warriors became not ordinary<br />
bears or wolves but mythical beings: Woden’s own. Woden himself, to judge from his<br />
bear names such as Björn, at times turned into a bear or bear-warrior. Defined by culture<br />
and religion, the fighting madness of bear- and wolf-warriors was not a mindless rage but<br />
a mythical identification. 34<br />
Later medieval warriors upheld a bear-symbolism that sometimes came close to<br />
identifying with the animal. Twelfth-century “Albrecht der Bär” of Saxony and<br />
Brandenburg “was” a bear to judge by his nickname. In the later Middle Ages, knights<br />
and burghers emblazoned their coats of arms with bears as well as with wolves, boars,<br />
eagles, lions, panthers, and dragons, proclaiming thereby their will to fight, like those<br />
beasts, nobly, fearlessly, and frighteningly. By then, bears were symbols only, but if one<br />
wanted to more truly identify with the animal, there were bear masks. Charles the Fifth<br />
(1519—1556) must have wanted to look like a bear if, as is likely, the bear-masked suit<br />
of armor now in Florence belonged to him. 35 If so, he bodied forth nearly the same<br />
warrior’s animal sympathy as the Aztec jaguar-, wolf-, and eagle-warriors whom his<br />
captain Cortés fought in Mexico.
3<br />
BUCKS<br />
A horned buck, knowing he has weapons, rushes into<br />
fights all the time.<br />
Columella<br />
Bucks (billy goats), stubborn and full of fight, also inspired Indo-European warriors.<br />
Buck-warriors, often wearing horned helmets, are found among Vedic Indians, Iranians,<br />
Sardinians, Mycenaeans, archaic Greeks, and Celts. Early Rome knew them too: buckwarriors<br />
of Juno Sospita had their part in the Lupercalia festival as had wolf-warriors of<br />
Romulus and Mars. 1<br />
<strong>Ancient</strong> Germani too fought as buck-warriors. Cornuti (“Horned Ones”), wearing<br />
horned helmets, stand out on several reliefs on Constantine’s Arch (Figure 3.1). 2<br />
Since the horns on the helmets rise from the front, not from the side, they are goat<br />
horns rather than bull horns. Carved by different artists, not all horned helmets on<br />
Constantine’s Arch look alike: in the marching and battle scenes the horns bend forward,<br />
in the scenes depicting the siege of Verona and the entry into Rome, they are straight or<br />
bend backward. Nevertheless, all mark the same kind of troops: horned buck-warriors.<br />
The reliefs on Constantine’s Arch show the horned warriors, wherever they are found,<br />
as front-rank fighters. In the siege-of-Verona scene they run along the walls, ahead of<br />
everyone else; in the battle at the Milvian Bridge, they, together with bowmen and<br />
horsemen, do all the fighting. Marked by their horned helmets as foreigners and<br />
portrayed as Constantine’s most outstanding troops, they must be the emperor’s topranking<br />
Auxilia Palatina. 3<br />
The highest-ranking Auxilia Palatina are known from the Notitia Dignitatum, the<br />
Roman government handbook of about AD 400, which lists Cornuti, Brachiati,<br />
Petulantes, and Celtae at the head of the Auxilia. Since all four of these units have twindragon<br />
shield badges, they belong together and were very likely raised together. Having<br />
similar shield badges, the four units also likely had the same fighting spirit: the one<br />
evoked by the name of the Petulantes—the bucks’ instinct of stubborn attack. 4
<strong>Ancient</strong> <strong>Germanic</strong> warriors 42<br />
Figure 3.1 Warrior with horned helmet<br />
at the siege of Verona, AD 311.<br />
Constantine’s Arch, Rome. Photo:<br />
Deutsches Archäologisches Institut,<br />
Rome, Inst. Neg. 32–82.<br />
Literary evidence states that the elite troops who in 311 won for Constantine the battle at<br />
the Milvian Bridge were largely <strong>Germanic</strong> warriors. This confirms that the Cornuti and<br />
Petulantes, Constantine’s most outstanding troops, were <strong>Germanic</strong> auxiliaries. 5 Certainly<br />
Constantine saw them as such, for he had their shield badge depicted on his arch in Rome<br />
(Figure 3.2). 6
Bucks 43<br />
The shield, borne by an officer in the victory parade on the socle of the arch, blazons<br />
the twin-dragon badge of the Auxilia Palatina. The gill-slits, clearly seen on the left<br />
dragon, prove that these are facing dragons, not “horns” as has been claimed. The un-<br />
Roman, <strong>Germanic</strong> twin-dragon symbol—the same as that on the Torslunda die (Figure<br />
1.6)—is here rigged with goat horns to adapt it to buck-warriors. 7 A bronze statuette, now<br />
in Princeton, shows Emperor<br />
Figure 3.2 Shield with facing twin<br />
dragons. Constantine’s Arch, Rome.<br />
Photo: Deutsches Archäologisches<br />
Institut, Rome, DAIR Inst. Neg<br />
342121.<br />
Constantine holding a shield with this twin-dragon badge: 8 adopting their shield, the<br />
emperor wants himself to be seen as a Cornutus buck-warrior. 9<br />
Likewise acknowledging the Cornuti’s fame, another relief on Constantine’s Arch<br />
depicts one of their horn-helmeted officers escorting a personified Roma to the victorious
<strong>Ancient</strong> <strong>Germanic</strong> warriors 44<br />
emperor. 10 It is a stunning picture—<strong>Germanic</strong> buck-warriors conquering Rome. A<br />
hundred years later, <strong>Germanic</strong> tribal warriors again conquered the city—the Goths in AD<br />
410—only then on their own account, against the emperor.<br />
Although buck-warriors were Rome’s elite troops during the fourth century, given the<br />
overall dearth of evidence they left few traces among free <strong>Germanic</strong> tribes. One of these<br />
is a third-century scabbard chape, engraved with a buck, that came to light in Denmark<br />
(Figure 3.3).<br />
Since the buck decorated a weapon, it must have had a warrior meaning: the scabbard<br />
belonged to a buck-warrior. The find-spot in Denmark fits very well, for some of<br />
Maximian’s and Constantine’s prisoners of war, and hence their Auxilia, such as the<br />
Heruli, came from there. 11<br />
Figure 3.3 Buck. Scabbard chape from<br />
Fredsö, Denmark. Drawing: Werner,<br />
Aufkommen 1966, 25, fig. 11.<br />
The shorter Gallehus gold horn of about AD 400, likewise from Denmark but now lost,<br />
depicts two naked gods with buck horns, war-dancing. Since gods wore such horns, buckwarriors<br />
may have felt themselves repeating the primordial deeds of gods, enacting the<br />
world-wide myth of the eternal return.<br />
Saxo Grammaticus in the thirteenth century says of the legendary Danish king Gram<br />
that he put on goatskins to intimidate others and wielded a frightful club. When Gro, the<br />
daughter of the Swedish king Sigtruk, saw him, she said: “Bold warriors have often<br />
hidden themselves under the hides of beasts.” Gram, in a sense, was a buck-warrior. 12
Bucks 45<br />
She-goats were the antithesis to buck-warriors. When in AD 363 Emperor Julian<br />
paraded Persian prisoners before his army, he called them “foul she-goats disfigured with<br />
filth” to brand them as woeful cowards. In the Grettis saga, the men from whom earl<br />
Audun bought his life called him Audun Geit, “Audun the Nanny-Goat.” 13<br />
Frankish and Nordic warrior names like Buccilin and Bucciovalda became rare after<br />
Christianity called the buck the devil’s animal. 14 Indeed, what is known of buck-warriors<br />
shows that our knowledge of ancient and early medieval warrior styles depends on the<br />
hazards of evidence lost or preserved. Only for wolf-warriors do we have sources rich<br />
enough to write a detailed history. But while we have fewer sources for buck-warriors,<br />
they may nevertheless have thrived from the Bronze Age to the Middle Ages. 15
4<br />
MARTENS<br />
Particularly impressive are the hectic and fast hunts of<br />
these animals in treetops. Especially when chasing<br />
squirrels, martens race on thin, swinging branches and, in<br />
the heat of the chase, jump from one treetop to another,<br />
leaping up to eleven feet (three and a half meters) through<br />
the air.<br />
H.Grzimek, Encyclopedia of Mammals, vol. 3<br />
Though much smaller than wolves, bears, or bucks, predators of the marten and weasel<br />
family (mustelidae) are as fierce and bloodthirsty, lending themselves well to warrior<br />
identification. They were mythical beings too: several Asiatic tribes, notably Huns and<br />
Indo-European Mitanni, claimed the wolverine, a relative of the marten, as their forebear.<br />
Animal sympathy among Indo-Europeans thus extended to the marten and weasel family.<br />
<strong>Ancient</strong> Germani dared not speak the animal’s true name. Marten (“Biter” or “Killer”)<br />
is a circumscribing Noa-name that avoids uttering the uncanny mythical name. 1 The<br />
marten’s supernatural role is seen on a third-century embossed silver foil found at<br />
Thorsberg, Schleswig where what seems to be a clawy marten with a neckband follows<br />
four mythical animals: a sea horse, a goat with fishtail, a boar, and a bird also wearing<br />
neckbands. As these animals are mythical, so is the marten among them. 2<br />
The Latin word for helmet, galea, originally meant “marten pelt,” but we cannot tell<br />
whether early Romans wore these helmets as marten-warriors or for their fine fur. Nor do<br />
we know why the fleet-footed spy Dolon in the Iliad wore a marten-pelt cap. 3<br />
The battlefield of AD 69 at the Roman fort of Gelduba on the Rhine has yielded a<br />
<strong>Germanic</strong> helmet (Figure 4.1). 4 Lost by a <strong>Germanic</strong> warrior, the helmet is a Roman iron<br />
bowl helmet, stripped of its neck and cheek guards and with ear openings closed. A<br />
leather band was fitted round the rim of the bowl with openings for feathers in front, an<br />
open space in the middle, and animal fur on top. Perhaps the fur was joined to an animal<br />
skull to fill the open space in front, though that is not certain. The Gelduba helmet recalls<br />
Plutarch’s words about <strong>Germanic</strong> Ambrones horsemen in 101 BC:<br />
They wore helmets like the gaping maws of frightful beasts and strange<br />
creatures, and these, with their towering feather crests, made them look<br />
even taller. 5
Martens 47<br />
Figure 4.1 <strong>Germanic</strong> helmet with<br />
feathers and perhaps a marten skull.<br />
Gelduba, Rhineland. Drawing after<br />
Reichmann, “Schlachtfelder” 1994, 7.<br />
The Gelduba helmet bears out Plutarch’s account of feathers and animals atop <strong>Germanic</strong><br />
helmets, and so does a relief from Neumagen depicting a <strong>Germanic</strong> helmet with<br />
feathers—further support for Plutarch’s description. 6<br />
A marten as a shield badge of Constantine’s <strong>Germanic</strong> Auxilia Palatina units is found<br />
in the fourth-century Notitia Dignitatum (Figure 4.2). 7<br />
Rearing on the hind legs is characteristic of the marten family. The triangular pointed<br />
head, the small ears, the straight forepaws, all fit a marten very well, even the brown<br />
back, the white belly and light forehead—if the colors of the drawing are meant to reflect<br />
reality. 8 At the Milvian bridge,
<strong>Ancient</strong> <strong>Germanic</strong> warriors 48<br />
Figure 4.2 Marten shield badge,<br />
Notitia Dignitatum (detail of Figure<br />
1.2). Notitia Dignitatum Oc.V., 36;<br />
drawing after Seeck, Notitia 1876, 36.<br />
then, Constantine had among his Auxilia Palatina not only buck-warriors but martenwarriors<br />
as well.<br />
From the seventh and later centuries come Old High German names such as<br />
Mardhedin (“Marten-Hood Wearer”) and Marthelm (“Marten-Helmet Wearer”), mostly<br />
from Frankish lands. Like the names Wolfhetan and Wolfhelm for wolf-warriors, or<br />
Bjarnhedin and Bernhelm for bear-warriors, the marten-names proclaim an animalwarrior<br />
style. Scholars studying ancient names have long suspected this to be so, but<br />
knew of no marten-warrior finds or images. 9 Now names and images together make it<br />
likely that ancient and early medieval Germani also fought as marten-warriors.<br />
<strong>Ancient</strong> as well as early medieval <strong>Germanic</strong> armies are likely also to have fielded<br />
boar-, aurochs-, raven-, eagle-, and other animal-warriors, but for lack of evidence from<br />
antiquity we must pass them by, save for a truly telling woman boar-warrior from the<br />
Oseberg wall-hanging of about AD 800 (Figure 4.3). 10<br />
Her trailing robe marks her as a women: perhaps she is a valkyrie, or one of the<br />
women champions who, according to Saxo, fought at Bråvalla. 11 As with the wolfwarriors<br />
of Gutenstein, Torslunda, and Ekhammar, the animal skin covers all of her head<br />
but only part of her dress. Raising her shield, she may be chanting the barritus as seen in<br />
Figure 10.1. Whether battlefield champion or valkyrie, the Oseberg boar-warrior woman<br />
shows that Stone Age animal sympathy still stirred <strong>Germanic</strong> warriors in the ninth<br />
century AD.
Martens 49<br />
Figure 4.3 Boar-warrior. Oseberg<br />
wall-hanging, Oslo. Drawing after<br />
Hougen, “Billedvev” 1940, 104.<br />
Looking back over the history of animal-warriors, the words of Mircea Eliade ring true<br />
for all such fighting styles:<br />
Imitating the gait of an animal or putting on its skin was acquiring a<br />
superhuman mode of being. There was no question of a regression into<br />
pure “animal life”; the animal was already charged with mythology. By<br />
becoming this mythical animal, man became something far greater and<br />
stronger than himself. 12
Part 2<br />
FRIGHTENING WARRIORS
5<br />
NAKED BERSERKS<br />
That headstrong madness and onrush which the barbarians<br />
take for manhood.<br />
Florus<br />
Indo-European berserks<br />
“Berserks,” said Snorri Sturluson in the thirteenth century, “were men who went to battle<br />
recklessly raging like mad dogs or wolves. Willfully forgoing body-armor, they scorned<br />
wounds and death.” Fighting madness and scorn of armor, then, are the two things that<br />
mark men as berserks. While scorning armor is rare, daring warriors fighting heedless of<br />
danger are found world-wide. They often form warrior-groups with their own laws and<br />
customs, boasting of their recklessness, as did, for example, American Indian no-retreat<br />
societies. Among Indo-Europeans, fighting madness arose easily and went with several<br />
warrior styles here discussed. Nevertheless, to be berserk—that is, fighting mad and<br />
scorning armor—was a warrior style in itself and a hallmark of Indo-European<br />
civilization. 1<br />
The oldest known Indo-European warrior is carved on a stone slab from Kernosovka<br />
in the Ukraine, belonging to the Copper Age Kemi-Oba culture of 4000–3000 BC. Longhaired,<br />
armed with three axes, a club, and a knife or spear, he wears, like many later<br />
berserks, only a belt. Being naked, he is a reckless warrior, but his pulled-up shoulders,<br />
his arms held to the chest, and his stiff penis (all three also found on the famous Celtic<br />
warrior statue from Hirschlanden) show him to burn with that inner heat that brings about<br />
the power of the shaman as well as the fury of the warrior. 2 Man or god, he is berserk.<br />
Unfortunately, no words come to us from that early time to tell us what beliefs led to his<br />
stance.<br />
We first hear of berserks in the army of Tukulti-Ninurta, king of Assyria 1243–1207<br />
BC. Having fought and routed the Babylonians in 1228, Tukulti-Ninurta commissioned<br />
an epic praising the battle madness of his warriors. The poem boasts that Tukulti-<br />
Ninurta’s gods struck his foes with blindness and fear and smashed their weapons, while<br />
his warriors, calling on the war goddess, shifted shapes like Anzu the eagle-dragon, threw<br />
off their armor, and danced themselves into a fighting frenzy:<br />
Wildly raging, taking forms strange as Anzu.<br />
They fiercely rush to the fray without armor,<br />
Having stripped off their breastplates, thrown off their clothing,
<strong>Ancient</strong> <strong>Germanic</strong> warriors 52<br />
They bound up their hair and polished (?) their weapons,<br />
The fierce heroes danced with sharpened weapons.<br />
They snorted at one another like fighting lions with flashing eyes<br />
The swirling dust storms of battle whirl about. 3<br />
Flashing eyes, fighting frenzy, snorting at one another, turning into beasts of prey, and<br />
swirling-storm tactics are found among warriors everywhere, including those of<br />
Mesopotamia. 4 But to shed one’s armor in the face of the enemy is a behavior known<br />
only of Indo-Europeans. Were Tukulti-Ninurta’s men Indo-European berserks in the<br />
service of Assyria?<br />
Sound method demands that the bigger the gap in time and space between comparable<br />
customs, the more elaborate the shared custom must be if one is to accept a common<br />
origin. Shedding one’s armor in sight of the enemy is a complicated, specific, and most<br />
unlikely gesture. A tantalizing inscription tells of Ramses II that he once fought out in<br />
front, before his chariotry and foot, without wearing his corselet, but it is not clear<br />
whether he did so to boast about his bravery or merely to say that he had been in great<br />
danger. 5 Having no armor is one thing; throwing it off in sight of the enemy is quite<br />
another—and Tukulti-Ninurta’s men threw off not just armor but their garments as well.<br />
Otherwise unknown to Near Eastern tradition, this is so much like what we know of Indo-<br />
European berserks that it makes an Indo-European origin of Tukulti-Ninurta’s men very<br />
likely indeed. 6<br />
Assyrians often took large numbers of prisoners into their army. Tukulti-Ninurta could<br />
have drafted Indo-Europeans into his service early in his reign, when he captured, as he<br />
says, “28,800 Hittites from beyond the Euphrates.” 7 He calls his wild warriors his<br />
bondsmen, ardani, which could mean his sworn warband, but the meaning of the word<br />
ardani shades also into “servants” and could thus mean Hittite or Iranian prisoners of<br />
war. 8 At the time, foreign mercenaries in the Near East serving as chariot-runners wore<br />
no body armor, while as infantry for close combat they did. 9 Like they, Tukulti-Ninurta’s<br />
foreigners may have been skilled in both kinds of fighting, with and without body armor,<br />
which would make them believe they could win against the Babylonians even without<br />
breastplates, by proudly fighting naked, trusting in speed and spryness.<br />
The weapons of Tukulti-Ninurta’s berserks, polished and sharpened before battle, may<br />
have been swords. New to the Near East, swords were brought there by Indo-European<br />
mercenaries about this time. 10 In later periods, too, berserks were mostly swordsmen.<br />
Without incoming foreigners, cultural and military change as radical as the appearance<br />
of berserk warriors in Assyria is unlikely. Complex, disciplined societies with a stable<br />
population like that of Assyria do not turn wild again on their own: there are no examples<br />
of that in world history. 11 Assyria could not have produced these berserks by itself.<br />
Whatever their origin, the berserk mind bore Tukulti-Ninurta’s warriors to victory.<br />
Perhaps they used the new iron weapons, but if so these had little to do with their victory.<br />
The epic so pointedly praises the men’s fighting spirit that one must take it as the decisive<br />
factor in their winning the battle. In war, mind-set at times matters more than<br />
technology. 12<br />
Tukulti-Ninurta’s epic, revealing Bronze Age berserks, thus is a most valuable source<br />
for the berserk warrior style. It shows, among other things, that being this old, the berserk
Naked berserks 53<br />
style cannot have spread, as some claim, with fighting on horseback, for cavalry arose<br />
later, at the end of the second millennium BC. 13 Battle madness of elite warriors is known<br />
from the myths of many Indo-European nations, including Vedic Indians, and for that<br />
reason too is likely to have flourished long before they dispersed in the early second<br />
millennium BC. 14<br />
Bronze Age images show Hittite, Shardana, Mycenaean, and northern European<br />
swordfighters naked. Confirming one another, these pictures must reflect reality. 15<br />
Archaic Greek bronze statuettes, however, represent naked warriors (with helmets and<br />
power belts) to portray a man’s ideal body rather than his actual battle dress. We do not<br />
know, therefore, at what time the Greeks gave up the old berserk style and ceased to fight<br />
naked. Backward areas of Greece still fielded naked fighters in Classical and Hellenistic<br />
times: tribesmen like the Aetolians fought barefoot; Spartan youths in their Krypteia year<br />
fought naked with only a dagger. 16 Later, naked Celts influenced the Greeks: Jason in<br />
Apollonios’ Argonautica, fought naked to be a greater hero, an ideal the Greeks adopted<br />
from the Celts in their third-century battles against them.<br />
Homeric warriors like Hector, when overcome with “wolfishness,” fought in a rage, a<br />
custom inherited from the Indo-European past. There are even traces of the belief that<br />
warriors in a berserk fury are wound-proof. When Hector raged against the Greeks,<br />
Teucer, who with his arrows shot the Trojans down one by one, hissed: “I cannot shoot<br />
this mad dog!” He tried, but Apollo sidetracked the arrow. Plutarch likewise thought of<br />
the Spartan Isadas, who in 375 BC flung himself naked into battle, that “his courage<br />
earned him the protection of some god.” 17<br />
Fighting naked was once well known in ancient Italy too. Rome’s aristocrats fought<br />
from horseback wearing only a loin cloth, a helmet, and greaves. They did so to be fast<br />
and nimble rather than reckless (though that frame of mind was not unknown among<br />
them either). 18 Looking back at old Italy’s prowess, Vergil calls the hero Herminius<br />
Great-souled, great-bodied, greatly armed warrior,<br />
flowing blond hair on his helmless head,<br />
bare-shouldered, unafraid of wounds<br />
huge that he was, fighting uncovered. 19<br />
<strong>Ancient</strong> Italic warriors, then, not only shared the Indo-European wolf-warrior style but<br />
also the berserk style of fighting bare-chested and barefooted, shouting, flowing-haired,<br />
unafraid of wounds, and often in single combat. 20 Their get-up bespeaks a berserk-like<br />
trance of recklessness and a thirst for fame that goaded them to awesome efforts. 21 Even<br />
Roman generals at the time of the Empire, not at the whim of their feelings, hoped to gain<br />
an image of bravery by leading their men bare-headed, without a helmet. 22<br />
Celts were famous for their naked warriors who, for fighting gear, wore only belt,<br />
shield, sword, and helmet. The well-known statue from Hirschlanden shows such a<br />
warrior on foot, while a ceramic relief from the Magdalensberg in Austria portrays a halfnude<br />
Celtic warrior on horseback. 23 Not all half-naked warriors need have fought in<br />
reckless ecstasy, but Celts easily fell prey to it. 24 At Telamon in Italy, in 225 BC, they<br />
wore only trousers and capes, while their Gaesati spearmen in the forefront, to bluster,<br />
threw off even these. 25 Gaesati berserks also wore golden neckbands to dare the enemy to
<strong>Ancient</strong> <strong>Germanic</strong> warriors 54<br />
come and get them. 26 In 189 BC the Celts of Asia Minor fought madly naked, exposing<br />
their bare, white skin, so the blood of their wounds would show to greater effect and to<br />
their greater glory. The Romans, having long ago shed the berserk style for “rational”<br />
fighting, knew how to deal with foes and blinded by rage: shooting them down with<br />
arrows, javelins, and slingshot, they avoided hand-to-hand fighting. 27 Against Romans,<br />
reckless fighting was self-murder, yet the Celts gave it up too slowly to save themselves<br />
from being ground down between Romans and Germani.<br />
Trajan’s berserks<br />
In 102 BC a scare-report made the rounds in Rome: the Cimbri, crossing the Alps, went<br />
naked through snow and ice. Ever since then, in Roman eyes <strong>Germanic</strong> warriors, like the<br />
Celts formerly, stood out for being naked. They are found thus on Trajan’s Column in<br />
scene 36, where eight bare-chested warriors that follow the emperor are likely to be<br />
Germani (Figure 0.2). The eight warriors fall into three groups. The man furthest back to<br />
the left wears baggy trousers and wields a club. One or two of the men above him may<br />
also be club-wielders. The shirt-wearer in the middle represents the <strong>Germanic</strong> Buri-<br />
Armilausi allies. 28 But who are the men nearest the emperor?<br />
They are barefoot, as is shown by a single bare foot, seen to the right of the window in<br />
Figure 0.2. That foot cannot belong to the shirt-wearer: it is a right foot with its big toe to<br />
the left, while the shirt-wearer’s own right leg points forward and thus is altogether out of<br />
range. The single, bare foot, then, must belong to the man above and behind the shirtwearer,<br />
hence to one of the youths that follow the emperor. 29 It mattered to the artist to<br />
put this foot into the picture, even at an awkward place, for it told viewers that the young<br />
men were barefoot, which identified them as remarkable fighters. Romans would not<br />
overlook such a thing: Vergil goes out of his way to describe old-style Italic warriors who<br />
took the field with one foot bare. 30 What is more, when we see Trajan’s youthful<br />
followers once more, a little further up on the Column, they are again barefoot (Figures<br />
5.2, 5.3).<br />
Three youths, more handsome still when the Column was new, follow Trajan closely<br />
(Figure 5.1).<br />
Free from the unkempt barbarian look, the three are portrayed strikingly young—the<br />
Column depicts no other group of soldiers this young. The first youth, next to Trajan, has<br />
a shock of curly hair also shown in scenes 40 and 42 (Figures 5.2, 5.3). 31 The hair of the<br />
second and third men, unlike that of the others, falls in long, straight strands toward the<br />
forehead like Trajan’s own hair in some of his portraits. Straight hair, to Roman artists,<br />
betokened fierceness of character. 32 These youths may well be Trajan’s escort, for<br />
bodyguards of Roman emperors, like those of <strong>Germanic</strong> chieftains, had to be young, of<br />
the same age, and handsome. Moreover, guards tended to follow
Naked berserks 55<br />
Figure 5.1 The emperor and his<br />
barefoot followers. Trajan’s Column,<br />
scene 36 (detail of Figure 0.2). Photo:<br />
Deutsches Archäologisches Institut,<br />
Rome, Inst. Neg. 71.2686.<br />
the emperor’s hairstyle. 33 The youth and beauty of soldiers are known to have caught<br />
Trajan’s eyes, while emperors, by and large, preferred <strong>Germanic</strong> guards for being blond<br />
and tall. 34<br />
The young men lack body armor and helmets, their only protection being oval shields.<br />
Barefooted, they are more reckless but also faster than merely bare-chested fighters,<br />
which is why the Column painstakingly portrays them as barefooted in all three scenes<br />
where they appear. Their weapons are hidden, but they had swords, for they wield them<br />
in scene 40 (Figure 5.2).<br />
Scene 40 shows two of Trajan’s young, bare-chested, barefooted, and curly haired<br />
followers. The one to the right has his scabbard hanging from the belt without a baldric.<br />
As bare-chested warriors in the Rhineland wore their swords thus, the relief is quite<br />
accurate here. 35<br />
The barefooted fighter to the left wears a baldric to which the scabbard of his sword is<br />
fastened by means of an eyelet. The scabbard is noticeably narrower than any others<br />
shown breadthwise (as, for example, the scabbards of the auxiliaries further left and in<br />
the upper right of scene 40). The artist thus may have wanted to mark here a foreign<br />
warrior with an unusually narrow, ribbed, foreign type of sword. 36 He drew from life, for<br />
<strong>Germanic</strong> tribesmen indeed fought with such rapiers, witness the second-century,
<strong>Ancient</strong> <strong>Germanic</strong> warriors 56<br />
Figure 5.2 Two barefooted, barechested<br />
warriors fighting with rapiers.<br />
Trajan’s Column, scene 40. Photo:<br />
Deutsches Archäologisches Institut,<br />
Rome, Inst. Neg. 89.764.<br />
narrow-bladed, ribbed swords found at Vimose in Denmark. Since mainly tribes along<br />
the Elbe river forged and wielded these rapiers and scabbards with eyelets, Trajan’s<br />
youthful followers seem to be Elbgermanen fighting with swords and in a fencing style<br />
brought from home. 37<br />
Lordlier than the spear, the long sword is more suited for single combat than for the<br />
battle line. Hence throughout antiquity and the Middle Ages the sword was the weapon of<br />
champions, leaders, and berserks who might sally from shield walls for daring deeds. The<br />
helmet wearers further to the left in scene 36 of the Column are likewise elite troops and<br />
sword-fighters. Saxo Grammaticus in the thirteenth century reveals something of the<br />
sword-fighters’ spirit when he adds to the gift of a sword the wish that its iron strength<br />
may sharpen the point of the owner’s soul. 38<br />
The youths of scenes 36 and 40 appear once more, slightly higher up on the Column,<br />
in scene 42 (Figure 5.3). 39
Naked berserks 57<br />
Figure 5.3 Two bare-footed<br />
swordsmen (middle and right<br />
foreground). Trajan’s Column, scene<br />
42. Photo: Deutsches Archäologisches<br />
Institut, Rome, Inst. Neg. 41.1336.<br />
Here the emperor gives a speech to thank the men who won the battle at Adamklissi.<br />
No weapons are shown, though the soldiers do hold shields. The legionaries with their<br />
standards wear strip armor, the auxiliaries wear chain mail and helmets, but Trajan’s<br />
young followers are bare-chested and bare-footed. They must have fought outstandingly<br />
well, for they loom large among those praised by the emperor, and unlike others who are<br />
seen from the back, they turn halfway to the viewer. The one to the left, youthful, cleanshaven,<br />
and rugged, strikingly holds the middle of the scene. The one to the right is a<br />
towering figure, almost a head taller than the men next to him. This is not happenstance,<br />
for his tall build is to mark him a northerner, a tower of strength, and a berserk. 40<br />
Why did the young men with Trajan rush to battle not only bare-chested but also barefooted?<br />
Being barefoot hardly helped in battle, but it was a way to steel oneself against
<strong>Ancient</strong> <strong>Germanic</strong> warriors 58<br />
pain and strengthen the will to overcome it. Spartans and Aetolians went barefoot to<br />
proclaim their toughness and scorn of wounds. 41 British Celts went barefoot because it<br />
helped in crossing their marshlands, and so they do even on Trajan’s Column where they<br />
run about as nimble stone-throwers and slingers. 42 Some Gauls and Germani, on the other<br />
hand, fought barefoot “for love of fame and out of daring.” That is why Gaesati spearmen<br />
in the battle at Telamon fought fully naked: greater nakedness betokened greater daring.<br />
Even in the Rome of the Republic this had been so. 43 For the same reasons, it seems, the<br />
young men of Trajan’s warband dared to rush into battle barefoot, outdoing all other<br />
warriors in nakedness. As for fame, Tacitus in his Germania says that wives and mothers<br />
would count and examine the wounds obtained in battle—for which the commentaries<br />
give no reason, but which is well illustrated by Livy’s report of Celtic fighting: wounds<br />
were glorious, and nakedness showed them to best effect. 44 Attacking recklessly, unshod,<br />
and bare-chested, Trajan’s young followers may be called berserks, even though the<br />
Column does not show them overcome by madness—fighting this naked was mad<br />
enough.<br />
Paul the Deacon says that the Heruls in the war against the Lombards in AD 560 wore<br />
only loincloths, “whether for speed or out of scorn for wounds.” Both reasons may apply<br />
to Trajan’s berserks who indeed may be Heruls. 45 Speed greatly mattered to the<br />
unarmored who ran toward the enemy through a hail of spears, arrows, and slingshot. To<br />
all, however, the principle was the same: the more naked a warrior, the more reckless and<br />
brave. 46<br />
The principle applies also to the warrior in a sleeveless shirt in scene 36 (Figure 0.2).<br />
His dress, slightly fuller than that of the bare-chests, is a very specific war garb,<br />
recognized as such by the Roman artist: surely the tribal costume of the Armilausi (“The<br />
Sleeveless”). Saxo Grammaticus records that the legendary eighth-century Danish king<br />
Harald Wartooth once gave proof of his bravery by facing enemy spears with his chest<br />
unguarded, wearing a shirt that only reached up to his armpits. Such a shirt, then, brought<br />
a warrior honor for his daring: the tribal name of the “Sleeveless” broadcast their<br />
prowess. 47<br />
Since bare-chested warriors catch the eye, Roman triumphal art often portrays them.<br />
Their wild looks were to frighten, but when they served in the emperor’s army, their<br />
loyalty marked the emperor as ruler of the whole world who gathers, from the ends of the<br />
earth, hosts of fighters against those who stand in his way. 48 In scene 36 of Trajan’s<br />
Column (Figure 5.1) the emperor’s barefooted followers convey this message. Their<br />
presence is not an empty cliché of triumphal art, for they are the men next to the emperor<br />
in a scene that portrays the events leading up to the decisive battle of the war. Since the<br />
Column’s purpose was to show the greatness of Trajan’s deeds, the warriors around him<br />
had to be portrayed believably: the reliefs could not stray so far from the truth as to make<br />
the emperor lead barefooted warriors had he not done so. Besides, barefooted <strong>Germanic</strong><br />
swordsmen, as we will see, are known also from first-century gravestones in the<br />
Rhineland, although on Trajan’s Column they could not appear in their breathtaking role<br />
as horse-stabbers since the reliefs do not show enemy horsemen that dare fight. After the<br />
Moesian campaign, the barefoot youths, unlike other trousered tribesmen, are no longer<br />
seen on Trajan’s Column. 49 Nevertheless, in the crowded framework of the Column’s<br />
reliefs they are represented as fully as could be: even the famed Mauri horsemen occur<br />
only once. The Column’s inscription says that it was commissioned by the senate, and the
Naked berserks 59<br />
conservative senate surely preferred the legions: 50 the troops must not appear too motley<br />
but truly Roman. 51 This would explain why the Column shows Trajan’s berserks in three<br />
scenes only. Yet in the decisive campaign they are the emperor’s most outstanding attack<br />
force.<br />
They are also nearest the emperor. Their nearness to the emperor, and their Romanstyle,<br />
short-cropped hair, marks them as guardsmen, very likely the infantry part of<br />
Trajan’s Singulares bodyguard. Singulares horsemen usually wore Roman auxiliary dress<br />
and equipment but also kept up their native <strong>Germanic</strong> fighting styles such as swimming<br />
rivers under arms and hurling barbed spears. 52 As governor of Roman Germany until he<br />
became emperor in AD 96, Trajan had a guard of <strong>Germanic</strong> Pedites and Equites<br />
Singulares. He kept the horsemen of that guard as his well-known Equites Singulares<br />
Augusti and built them a fort in Rome. In the early years of his reign when he still faced<br />
opposition he is not likely to have given up his Pedites Singulares either. Whether or not<br />
he ever brought them to Rome, he may well have used them in the Dacian war of AD<br />
101–102. 53 Pedites Singulares were provincial elite troops who might also keep their<br />
native fighting styles—witness the guard or attack troops of the Roman governor in<br />
Britain, the barefoot Pedites Singulares Britanniciani, who likewise went to the Dacian<br />
war. 54 In Germany, an elite native fighting style was the naked berserk or Herul attack<br />
shown in Figure 5.2.<br />
Icelandic sagas know two kinds of berserks, those whose personality made them<br />
anger-prone, and others whose role in battle called for them to become berserk at a<br />
certain turn of events. Berserks of the latter kind served among the guard of Nordic kings.<br />
Events at the death of Caligula show that one is not far wrong even in calling a Roman<br />
emperor’s guard “berserk.” When in AD 41 Caligula was murdered, Josephus says:<br />
News of Caligula’s death first reached the Germani. They were the<br />
emperor’s guard, named after the nation from which they are recruited. It<br />
is a national trait of theirs to be carried off by emotions more than other<br />
barbarians, because they reason less about what they do. Their bodies are<br />
strong and they achieve much at the first onrush against those whom they<br />
see as their enemies. They were shocked when they learned of Caligula’s<br />
murder… With swords drawn they burst out from the palace to find the<br />
emperor’s murderers. 55<br />
The guardsmen went on to kill several senators, and to hold hostage, at sword point, the<br />
whole theater on the Palatine, teeming as it was with Roman nobility. Although no naked<br />
blustering may have been involved (and perhaps none was needed), their violent anger as<br />
a body of warriors allows one to call them “berserks.” As the following will show, it was<br />
typical for a warband to turn berserk to avenge their slain leader.<br />
Scorning armor in the Roman army: Emperor Julian<br />
When Caesar moved the Roman frontier to the Rhine, he began to recruit northern<br />
warriors for the Roman army. Later emperors enrolled more and more of them. 56 Under<br />
Trajan (98–117), bare-chested berserks are seen for the first time in the emperor’s escort.
<strong>Ancient</strong> <strong>Germanic</strong> warriors 60<br />
Thereafter, the role of unarmored warriors in the emperor’s guard grew steadily—that is,<br />
those berserk or berserk-like.<br />
Caracalla (211–217) raised his bodyguard from warriors beyond the Rhine and<br />
Danube and promoted them to centurions in other units. He wore <strong>Germanic</strong> dress in the<br />
field—long trousers and a long-sleeved shirt—and ordered the whole army to wear this.<br />
A fair number of Germani must have served not only in his bodyguard but in the<br />
praetorian guard as well, for only the tallest were drafted into the guard, and northerners<br />
were tall. Hence, when soon after Caracalla’s death Macrinus allowed the praetorians to<br />
shed their scale-cuirasses and their curved shields, they responded with enthusiasm and a<br />
great eagerness to fight. 57 This flew in the face of Roman tradition: praetorians had<br />
always been heavy-armed troops. Besides, it was tactically uncalled for, as the enemy<br />
were Elagabalus’ heavy Roman legions. Macrinus’ men lost, but the enthusiasm<br />
unleashed among them by shedding their armor points to an outburst of northern reckless<br />
fighting.<br />
Later, in AD 296, would-be-emperor Allectus fought among his Frankish guards,<br />
dressed as they were: in shirt or coat only, without armor. 58 Likewise during the conquest<br />
of Italy in AD 311, Constantine’s victorious horse guards wore no armor, only helmets,<br />
while the opposing guardsmen of Maxentius were burdened with knee-length hauberks. 59<br />
Wearing a helmet but no armor was a berserk custom from the Bronze Age to the time of<br />
the Icelandic sagas. Nearer the end of the Empire, when most of Rome’s elite troops were<br />
<strong>Germanic</strong>, Gratian (375–383) allowed his men to shed first their cuirasses, then also their<br />
helmets. 60<br />
As the berserk fighting spirit of mad attack began to pervade the Roman army, it<br />
changed its discipline and tactics. In AD 354 Constantius II won a battle against the<br />
Alamanni when three of his officers, Arintheus, Seniauchus, and Bappo, rushed the<br />
enemy in disorderly, wild lunges: non iusto proelio sed discursionibus. 61 Carefully<br />
planned movements of units gave way once more to rash attack and heroic single combat.<br />
In another incident in AD 360 at the siege of Bezabde in Mesopotamia, Constantius II’s<br />
keenest troops took off their helmets so the emperor could see who fought best—and<br />
Persian bowmen shot down many. In the late Roman army the <strong>Germanic</strong> warriors’<br />
yearning to outdo others dulled Roman order and drill: their wild, free spirit prevailed. 62<br />
Later Roman emperors, fighting in the midst of their foreign guardsmen,<br />
understandably took on some of their guards’ fighting style and mind-set. 63 Constantine,<br />
as we have seen, posed as a buck-warrior. Emperor Julian (355–363), brought up by a<br />
Gothic teacher, liked the straightforward warriors from the Rhine and found their spirit<br />
kindred to his:<br />
I am more churlish, fiercer, and more headstrong than Cato, just as the<br />
Celts are more so than the Romans, for I was among the Celts and<br />
Germani and the Black Forest as soon as I became a man. Spending much<br />
time there, like a hunter among wild animals, wrestling with them, I met<br />
men who know not how to fawn and flatter, but only how to behave<br />
simply and frankly to all men alike … Our characters being much alike,<br />
they loved me so that they had the heart to take up arms for me. 64
Naked berserks 61<br />
“Wrestling with animals” seems strange to modern hunters, but in earlier times hunting<br />
could be a true fight between man and animal. 65 <strong>Germanic</strong> warriors had the openness and<br />
frankness that came from their wonted freedom and from having overcome fear. Julian<br />
felt for them a sympathy of life and character. 66 He even claimed to be a “Celt” himself,<br />
although beer, to him, reeked of ram, while wine tasted like nectar. 67<br />
Tellingly, Julian also took on the berserk warrior spirit. He wore no cuirass when he<br />
rode into the Persian ranks during the ill-fated retreat from Ktesiphon in AD 363.<br />
Ammianus says that Julian “forgot about his cuirass” (oblitus loricae), which has often<br />
been understood to mean that he forgot his cuirass in haste or in a fit of absentmindedness.<br />
The word oblitus, however, can also mean that Julian purposely put the<br />
cuirass out of his mind and plunged recklessly into the fray to rouse his followers to<br />
fury—iras sequentium excitans, as Ammianus says. 68 Julian’s derring-do to stir others to<br />
fighting madness thus was a berserk feat by an emperor who, from first to last, put his<br />
trust in northern warriors and led them, as they expected it, from in front with wild<br />
sallies. 69 Fittingly, they avenged him in reckless berserk style. 70<br />
In the battle at Adrianople in AD 378, the spirit of headlong attack sealed the fate of<br />
Emperor Valens and the Western Empire. Rome lost the battle because its army, no<br />
longer Roman but consisting mainly of foreigners, charged the foe, against orders, too<br />
early. The elite Scholae troops thus upset the emperor’s battle plan. When they fell<br />
back—also a <strong>Germanic</strong> custom, befitting more lightly armed troops—they brought on the<br />
great rout, a fact that some historians overlook, but that was nevertheless the proximate<br />
cause for the fall of the Roman Empire. 71<br />
Berserks may have helped Assyria a great deal, for after Tukulti-Ninurta, Assyria rose<br />
meteor-like in the wars of the time. Berserks, fighting fearlessly, likewise proved useful<br />
to Rome for a long time. Yet their stormy unruliness needed to be kept in line. Tukulti-<br />
Ninurta and Trajan had their foreign warriors well in hand, and in AD 357 Julian still<br />
could hold back teeth-gnashing warriors until the right moment. 72 Valens in 378 could<br />
not—so he went under, and with him the Empire.<br />
Berserks in the early Middle Ages<br />
In the early Middle Ages berserks are well in evidence. Paul the Deacon, as we have<br />
seen, says of the sixth-century, berserk-like Heruls that in the war against the Lombards<br />
in AD 560 they wore only loincloths, “whether for speed or out of scorn for wounds.”<br />
Both reasons may be true: Heruls, swordsmen like Trajan’s berserks, were widely sought<br />
after for their speed. 73<br />
It is not only Roman triumphal reliefs, gravestones, statuettes, and coins that portray<br />
<strong>Germanic</strong> warriors bare-chested, 74 <strong>Germanic</strong> art of the early Middle Ages does so too.<br />
Bare-chested fighting in the sixth century is seen on a foil from the helmet found in grave<br />
12 at Vendel: two unarmored, bare-headed warriors fight a duel. Their bare chests mark<br />
the same daring spirit as that of Trajan’s followers. On one of the Torslunda dies the hero<br />
with the bound bear is bare-chested. 73 The Swedish custom of fighting bare-chested thus<br />
stands in a <strong>Germanic</strong> tradition and comes not, as some have claimed, from late-Roman<br />
gladiators. 76
<strong>Ancient</strong> <strong>Germanic</strong> warriors 62<br />
Woden and Balder, in their role of rousing warriors to fighting madness, danced the<br />
war dance naked like berserks (Figures 11.2, 11.3). The nakedness of berserks thus had<br />
also a mythic and cultic side and was bound to religious ritual. Over time, however, the<br />
need for berserks to strut naked grew less. As more warriors wore mail, they could signal<br />
outstanding bravery in battle by throwing off their hauberk or flinging their shield on<br />
their back as they do in Icelandic sagas and Saxo Grammaticus. 77 By the seventh-century,<br />
the time-honored spear dance too could be done fully dressed, as seen on the decorative<br />
foils of the helmet from Sutton Hoo. 78<br />
During the early Middle Ages, many Indo-European nations still knew the naked<br />
warrior style. Irish legends speak of berserk fighting madness. The churl in “Bricriu’s<br />
Feast” praises the Ulaid, telling them that they “surpass the hosts of every land in anger<br />
and prowess and weaponry, in rank and pride and dignity, in honor and generosity and<br />
excellence,” while in the tale of the Táin, warriors come to battle “stark naked but for<br />
their weapons.” These are true berserk ideals. 79 In Eastern Europe, sixth-century<br />
Sklavenoi (Slav) warriors fought without shirts, says Procopius. Like everyone, they must<br />
have owned shirts, but they took them off to fight in the traditional naked-warrior style.<br />
Saxo Grammaticus in his early thirteenth-century “Gesta Danorum” confirms this when<br />
he mentions Slavs of old with very long swords who, like true berserks, threw off their<br />
hauberks and shields as battle began. 80 Iranians too upheld the custom of battle madness<br />
into the Middle Ages, and so did the bare-chested, armring-wearing Indian nairs and<br />
amocs of the Malabar coast who, like berserks, stopped at neither fire nor sword. 81<br />
Berserks in battle<br />
To do deeds of berserk daring was to be mad. 82 Dancing can unleash such madness.<br />
Dancing and being berserk have in common that they allow people for a time to do far<br />
more than they otherwise can, followed, however, by utter exhaustion. Rhythmic song<br />
and dance, as we will see, bonded warriors together, entranced them, and aroused their<br />
fighting frenzy. To be berserk was to be like Woden, the warrior god, whom bracteate<br />
amulets show dancing naked, wide-eyed, shouting, and snorting. 83<br />
Tacitus speaks of young <strong>Germanic</strong> warriors who danced with weapons in hand. Being<br />
naked, these youths were berserks. Tukulti-Ninurta’s Assyrian berserks, Celtic Gaesati,<br />
and <strong>Germanic</strong> youths, but also Aztec and Maya warriors, all danced naked. 84<br />
Naked warriors—and “naked” here can mean anything from altogether without clothes<br />
to dressed but without armor—were not only faster than those burdened by armor, they<br />
proudly flaunted their muscular bodies and scorn of wounds. When in 216 BC the<br />
Romans at Cannae saw Hannibal’s bare-chested Gauls, they took fright: men look<br />
somehow more frightening when bare-chested. Men also feel braver and more<br />
threatening when bare-chested: news media love to broadcast football hooligans strutting<br />
about bare-chested, showing off their recklessness. 85 To fight naked thus was a<br />
psychologically effective warrior style.<br />
The flashing eyes of berserks are not easy to show in pictures, but they are well<br />
recorded in literature. Tukulti-Ninurta’s furious berserks, as we have seen, flashed their<br />
eyes. Hector’s eyes flashed as he raged, and Ammianus says of the Alamanni in 357 that<br />
fury shone from their eyes. From the Middle Ages we hear that Beowulf s eyes flashed,
Naked berserks 63<br />
that madness glared in the eyes of warriors, that Woden was flame-eyed, and that King<br />
Óláf s foes quailed at the sight of his asp-keen eyes. 86 Looks to frighten the foe were a<br />
widely used weapon.<br />
Snorting is another telling trait of angry warriors. Tukulti-Ninurta’s men snorted in<br />
1228 BC, and so did the Alamanni in AD 357. Ammianus Marcellinus says that they,<br />
being eager fighters, “snorted wildly as if they would destroy all that stood against them<br />
by a blast of fury.” In the early Middle Ages one of Woden’s names is Thrasarr,<br />
“snorter,” to which corresponds the early medieval warrior name Drasulf, “Snorting<br />
Wolf.” 87 Saxo speaks of nine brothers, perhaps berserks, “emitting wild snorts<br />
accompanied by ugly gestures, acting out their battle maneuvers.” 88 Throughout history,<br />
then, flashing angry looks and snorting were signs of berserkdom. Woden as leader of<br />
berserks showed both.<br />
Shape-shifting was also characteristic for berserks. Tukulti-Ninurta’s warriors in the<br />
second millennium BC took “forms strange as Anzu.” On sixth-century bracteate amulets<br />
Woden changes into a bird of prey, and Snorri Sturluson knows many shapes the god<br />
could take in battle. 89 Shifting into animal shapes had much in common with being<br />
overcome by battle-madness, which is why bear- and wolf-warriors fought so berserklike<br />
and wound-proof. 90<br />
Celtic and <strong>Germanic</strong> berserks in the grip of fury shifted shapes by frightfully twisting<br />
their faces and bodies. CúChulainn did so in Irish legend. Tenth-century Egil, as he came<br />
to claim the wergeld for his slain brother, showed the king how angry he was by drooping<br />
one eyebrow down towards his cheek, raising the other up to the roots of his hair, and<br />
moving his eyebrows alternately up and down. Mad shape-shifting thus is a trait of Indo-<br />
European berserks, whether Vedic Indian, Celtic, <strong>Germanic</strong>, or in TukultiNinurta’s<br />
service. 91<br />
The fast attack with swords, often likened to storm or fire, suited madly raging<br />
warriors best. Tukulti-Ninurta’s berserks fought like a whirling storm. Vedic warriors<br />
worshiped the storm god Vayu. Cimbri rushed into battle with the speed of a raging fire.<br />
Goths at Adrianople attacked “like a thunderclap in the mountains,” and Woden’s battle<br />
in the tenth-century AD was a storm. 92<br />
In the well-ordered array of the shield-castle, berserks no doubt had to hold shields,<br />
and the sagas have them equipped with shields, since the honor of warriors called for it.<br />
Their hour of reckless fighting came when the enemy line was to be broken, when a<br />
wedge was to be driven forward, or the king himself surged ahead. 93 Ammianus noted<br />
that in AD 357 at Strassburg when Alamannic kings waded into Roman lines, their<br />
warriors exposed themselves to danger blazing with fury. 94<br />
The Old English poem on the Battle of Maldon, written soon after 991, tells how the<br />
men of Byrhtnoth’s warband threw all caution to the wind when their leader was killed.<br />
Vowing to avenge him at the cost of their lives, two warriors pledged they would not<br />
yield one foot of ground, which seems to have been a berserk way of fighting. Being<br />
Christian heroes, they are not called berserks and are not naked or without shield and<br />
hauberk, but not to yield any ground at all was berserk-like, showy, and risky. It was also<br />
a trait of fighting madmen everywhere, as with the no-retreat societies of North American<br />
Indians. 95<br />
Icelandic sagas and Saxo Grammaticus make much of the berserk fighting technique<br />
of wielding a sword with both hands. This meant forgoing the safety of a shield while
<strong>Ancient</strong> <strong>Germanic</strong> warriors 64<br />
dealing much stronger two-handed strokes. When Swedish anatomists, examining the<br />
skeletons of men slain at Visby in 1361, found almost unbelievably powerful sword<br />
strokes—a man had both legs cut off by one blow and heads were cloven right through<br />
their steel coifs—they thought that berserk rage must have strengthened the warriors who<br />
dealt such blows. Two-handed sword strokes rather than berserk rage may be the answer,<br />
though. Fighting with both hands must have been more than an act of despair: no doubt it<br />
was a well-trained berserk fighting style. 96<br />
The berserk mind<br />
Tacitus wrote of the mounted and heavily armored Sarmatians that all their manhood lay<br />
outside them; that is, in their horses and weapons. Germani, on the other hand, according<br />
to Dio, “fought with their bodies rather than weapons.” 97 The reason for this was not, as<br />
Romans claimed, that northerners had little to live for and therefore mindlessly rushed to<br />
their death. Rather, it was part of a warrior ideal, spelled out by Vergil when he called<br />
bare-shouldered Herminius “great-souled.” Northern warriors were “great-souled” for<br />
wishing to win through their own prowess. The ideal of winning in a fair fight, going<br />
back to the second millennium BC and known to Homer, was still held by Emperor Julian<br />
in the fourth century AD. <strong>Germanic</strong> armies, in this spirit, were ready to settle beforehand<br />
on a time and place for battle. Vandal warriors followed the same ideal when in the<br />
decisive battle at Tricamarum in AD 533 they fought only with their swords. Maurice,<br />
around AD 600, said that Franks, Lombards, and other blond peoples scorn dirty tricks. 98<br />
The ideal of fairness in battle, so as to show one’s true strength, also guided Beowulf in<br />
his fight with Grendel, and later still the English in the battle of Maldon. 99<br />
Berserks could trust above all in their own fighting skills. They also had faith in<br />
Woden. As Greeks thought gods protected mad fighters, so berserks of the early Middle<br />
Ages believed that where they raged, Woden blinded the eyes and blunted the weapons of<br />
their foes. Thus Saxo, in the thirteenth century, tells of legendary Harald Wartooth, king<br />
of Vik:<br />
Clad in a red cloak, his hair held by a band tricked out with gold, he<br />
advanced on the enemy, quietly trusting to the knowledge of his luck<br />
rather than weapons—so much that he seemed to be dressed for a party,<br />
not war. But his mind was unlike his outfit, for unarmored, wearing only<br />
his royal insignia, he went before the armed battalions and gave the raging<br />
dangers of war a chance. Yet the spears flung at him could no more harm<br />
him than if their blades pointed backward. When others saw this fighter’s<br />
woundlessness, they were taken aback and shame spurred them to attack<br />
him still more fiercely. Harald, unwounded, killed them with his sword or<br />
sent them fleeing. 100<br />
We do not know for certain whether naked and half-naked <strong>Germanic</strong> warriors of<br />
antiquity thought themselves wound-proof. The psychological and physiological state of<br />
fighting frenzy with its rise of adrenaline levels may have led to such a belief, for<br />
adrenalin “dilates the airways to improve breathing and narrows blood vessels in the skin
Naked berserks 65<br />
and intestine so that an increased flow of blood reaches the muscles, allowing them to<br />
cope with the demands of the exercise. During surgery, it is injected into tissues to reduce<br />
bleeding.” Buoyed by an “adrenalin rush,” frenzied fighters may well have thought<br />
themselves stronger and less vulnerable than others. 101 Since the Hirpi Sorani wolfwarriors<br />
of ancient Italy could not be hurt by fire or iron, and since the same was true of<br />
medieval berserks, it is likely that <strong>Germanic</strong> naked fighters of antiquity too felt they were<br />
wound-proof. 102<br />
Battlefield rage, shown for all to see, and hence not just the madness of despair, is<br />
widely found among Indo-European and <strong>Germanic</strong> warriors, but there is no telling how<br />
many fought in this state of mind, nor how often they did this. There certainly were some<br />
limits to fighting madness: in a stealth attack under Roman guidance, half-naked clubwielders<br />
had to be altogether quiet (Figure 7.1). On the other hand, overblown bravery in<br />
the fray of battle could turn to sudden panic: fleeing berserks dragged more than one<br />
army into a rout. 103<br />
Words and concepts shared by Indo-Europeans suggest that fighting madly was a very<br />
old custom. The word for mad attack, eis-, shared by Vedic, Iranian, and <strong>Germanic</strong><br />
warriors, implies that the berserk fighting style comes from the time before the dispersal<br />
of the Indo-Europeans. 104 Dumézil put it thus:<br />
Aēšma [to Zoroastrians] is one of the worst evils, and later, in the eyes of<br />
the Mazdaeans, the most frightful demon, who bodies forth the destructive<br />
fury of society. Yet it only personifies as something bad a quality that<br />
gives the Ŗg Veda, from the same root, an adjective of praise for the<br />
Maruts, the followers of Indra, and for their father, the dreadful Rudra:<br />
işmīn “impetuous” and no doubt “furious.” These words come from the<br />
root of Greek Latin ira, and, it seems, from the Old Norse verb eiskra that<br />
describes the rage of the wild berserk warriors; hence we meet here a<br />
technical term of the Indo-European “warrior bands.” 105<br />
Fighting madness is an ecstatic state of mind. Woden’s name, which lives on in our<br />
“Wednesday,” meant fury, but a fury that included a poet’s ecstasy: Latin vates, “ecstatic<br />
poet,” and Irish fáith, “seer, poet,” come from the same root. In myths, Woden was the<br />
god of the poets. In Old Norse literature, as we will see, berserks spoke poems on the<br />
battlefield. These linguistic and mythological rapports give the berserk mind its place in<br />
Indo-European intellectual and cultural history and confirm the age of that double<br />
ecstasy. 106<br />
The mind of berserk warriors in the second millennium BC may have been much the<br />
same as that of medieval berserk warriors two thousand years later. The English word<br />
“mind,” related to “mania,” comes from the same root as the Sanskrit manas and Greek<br />
menos, both meaning “spirit” as well as “fury.” For Homeric warriors menos was “a<br />
temporary urge of one, many, or all bodily or mental organs to do something specific, an<br />
urge one can see but not influence.” Menos came from the heavens; heroes owed their<br />
great deeds to it, and Indo-European heroic poetry sings its praise. From menos arose<br />
sundry forms of abandoning oneself to a new identity such as wolf- or bear-warrior, or<br />
berserk. As Mircea Eliade put it, “The frenzied berserkir, ferocious warriors realized<br />
precisely the state of the sacred fury (Wut, menos, furor) of the primordial world.” 107
<strong>Ancient</strong> <strong>Germanic</strong> warriors 66<br />
Flaunting reckless bravery, chanting, and dancing, were ways to rouse warriors to<br />
battle madness. Berserks, moreover, easily flew into a rage when someone taunted them<br />
or stood in their way: anger over being thwarted made them mad. They did not need to<br />
eat poisonous mushrooms in order to bring on fighting madness as some have claimed. 108<br />
Heroes grew reckless when, like Thorolf, they were about to lose a battle, or when they<br />
avenged a slain leader, as Caligula’s and Julian’s <strong>Germanic</strong> guards did, or Byrhtnoth’s<br />
warband in the Battle of Maldon and Bothvar Bjarki at Leire. 109<br />
Berserk-like warriors still fought in the Battle of the Standard in 1138 when King<br />
David of Scotland met an Anglo-Norman army. David’s Galwegian and Highland<br />
warriors claimed their right to attack ahead of his armored household knights.<br />
Unarmored, but madly daring, they ran toward the English line, brandishing lances and<br />
swords, only to be shot down by English bowmen. 110 The few who reached the enemy<br />
could do nothing against the armored, dismounted knights who led the defense. When<br />
they fled, they dragged the rest of the Scottish army into a rout. 111 Though no longer<br />
heathen, they fought “trusting in manhood rather than a shield”—the berserk belief that a<br />
man’s scorn of armor shows his bravery and that his daring saves him from wounds.<br />
This belief became ever harder to uphold, and so the berserks’ role in battle shrank. In<br />
the haphazard hand-to-hand fighting at the end of the Bronze Age, mad attackers like<br />
Tukulti-Ninurta’s warriors or Hector and Achilles achieved much, but later they fared<br />
badly against disciplined troops, above all those with archers in their ranks such as the<br />
Romans or the Norman English. 112 Berserk fighting survived longest in small-troop<br />
fighting or single combat as in medieval Scandinavia.<br />
Berserks in Icelandic sagas<br />
In AD 1000, when the Icelanders turned Christian, they forbade the “berserksgangr” as a<br />
heathen cult practice. 113 From then on, no more true wolf-warriors, bear-warriors, or<br />
naked mad fighters were to be seen, and writers were free to draw on their imagination as<br />
well as on tradition. Only Edda and skaldic poems from before that time offer glimpses of<br />
the true berserk warrior style. Sagas, on the other hand, with their rich descriptions and<br />
dramatic events, come from Christian times, and give a somewhat foggy view. They<br />
blend the warrior styles of wolf-warriors, bear-warriors, longhairs, and naked mad<br />
warriors into a literary type called “berserk,” no longer naked but still scorning armor.<br />
This makes for gripping tales, due to the authentic traits of Woden’s erstwhile ecstatic<br />
warriors. 114<br />
Some sagas speak of berserks as loathsome bullies, others describe them as<br />
outstanding warriors. The thirteenth-century Barlaam saga even calls Christ “god’s<br />
young berserk” and his twelve disciples “his berserks.” 115 Good or bad, berserks held a<br />
large place in the popular imagination as wild, howling, reckless fighters, huge, strong,<br />
blood-sucking, and mad. Some were giants. 116 Traits not heard of before are that they<br />
could swallow burning coals and, when angered, bit off the rim of their shields. Often<br />
neither fire nor iron could harm them, only clubs or a bite through the windpipe. 117 The<br />
berserks of the sagas have often been described, 118 but their way of fighting needs to be<br />
connected with the ancient <strong>Germanic</strong> warrior styles. Snorri Sturluson in the Ynglinga<br />
saga, written shortly after AD 1220, says of berserks:
Naked berserks 67<br />
Woden’s men went without hauberks and raged like dogs or wolves. They<br />
bit their shields and were strong like bears or bulls. They killed men, but<br />
neither fire nor iron hurt them. This is called “berserksgangr.”<br />
Snorri still knows surprisingly many of the old naked-warrior (also wolf-and bearwarrior)<br />
traits: rage and lack of armor, a bond with Woden, numbness to pain (shieldbiting),<br />
strength and fierceness, being free from hurt by fire and iron, and action as a<br />
“going.” He compares berserks to wolves and bears, for by his time they embodied also<br />
wolf- and bear-warrior characteristics like howling and biting windpipes.<br />
Egils saga, written in the thirteenth century, says of Harald Fairhair that in the battle<br />
on the Hafrsfjord he had twelve berserks in the bow of his dragonship, his ship in the van.<br />
Snorri Sturluson’s saga of Harald Fairhair likewise has the king man his dragonship with<br />
berserks and bodyguards. 119 Berserks among Vikings thus had the same role as the naked<br />
Gaesati in 212 BC: to open battles. So too did the related Chatti long-hairs.<br />
Quick to quarrel, fearless, and highly skilled in battle, berserks often served in a king’s<br />
guard. King Hrolf at Leire and King Athill at Upsala each had twelve berserks as<br />
champions who defended them against all perils and onsets and won them much wealth.<br />
The number twelve is typical; it recalls the twelve warriors that were the inner circle of<br />
earlier Indo-European warbands, as well as Nordic warbands. 120 Since rulers did not want<br />
to depend wholly on reckless warriors, berserks constituted only a part of their guard.<br />
This was as true of Harald Fairhair and King Hrolf as of Ramses II who had the Shardana<br />
and a native Egyptian guard and Trajan who had naked northern warriors beside his<br />
regular horse guard. 121<br />
Egils saga reports that in the battle on Vin Heath (Brunanburh) in Northumbria in 937,<br />
Thorolf, the Icelandic Viking leader, wore a strong helmet but no hauberk, and in the<br />
press of battle<br />
he became so berserk that he swung his shield round to his back, and took<br />
his spear in both hands. He ran forward, striking or thrusting on both<br />
sides. Men sprang away in all directions, but he killed many… Then<br />
Thorolf drew his sword, striking out on both sides, and his men also<br />
joined the attack. 122<br />
Remarkably, Thorolf went berserk at first with his spear and only after he lost it in<br />
running the enemy leader through did he draw his sword. The gesture of flinging the<br />
shield on one’s back and fighting with both hands is found as early as the fifteenth<br />
century BC in Mycenae. Thirteenth-century BC reliefs in Abydos in Egypt depict Ramses<br />
II’s berserk-like Shardana guard in this way, and archaic Greek warrior statuettes portray<br />
this technique. 123 In Norse literature, flinging the shield on one’s back and gripping the<br />
sword with both hands is the quintessential berserk fighting style. Egils saga and other<br />
sources make it clear that the gesture signaled the will to fight recklessly without regard<br />
to one’s safety, and that it brought fame. No doubt, two-handed sword-fighting was<br />
trained beforehand. 124<br />
Thorolf’s wearing a helmet but no hauberk was an old, aristocratic, and berserk<br />
custom; it is known from the guardian relief at the King’s Gate in the Hittite capital of<br />
Hattusas and the famous Celtic Hirschlanden statue, as well as from coins of Rome’s
<strong>Ancient</strong> <strong>Germanic</strong> warriors 68<br />
ancient aristocratic horsemen and reliefs depicting Emperor Constantine’s guard on his<br />
arch in Rome. Several other sagas beside Egils saga speak of it, as does the lay of Hakon<br />
quoted below. 125<br />
Thorolf was not seized by an unforeseen berserk fit, he had prepared for going berserk<br />
by not wearing a hauberk. He had it in his hand when to fight madly. With some warriors<br />
being a berserk was a predisposition handed down from father to son, but with Thorolf it<br />
was a deliberately chosen warrior style. This is true even more so of Norway’s King<br />
Hákon the Good who in 961 also scorned armor:<br />
He threw off his armor<br />
thrust down his mail-coat,<br />
the great-hearted lord,<br />
ere the battle began.<br />
He laughed with his liege-men.<br />
His land would he shield<br />
The gladsome hero<br />
‘neath goldhelm standing. 126<br />
Hákon’s laughter underlines his scorn of wounds. Like a true berserk, he went on to fight<br />
before the line and the standard.<br />
Berserk-like gestures abound in Nordic warrior tales. 127 Among them is the Norse<br />
account of the Battle at Stamford Bridge in 1066 between Harald Hardrada of Norway<br />
and Harald Godwinson of England: when the battle went badly for the Norwegians,<br />
Hardrada turned berserk. “He became so uncontrollably fighting mad that he ran out in<br />
front of the battle line and slashed with both hands”—that is, without his shield. All those<br />
near him fled, but an arrow, shot in his throat, killed him. When his followers Eystein<br />
Orri and his men saw this, they “were so mad that they did not shield themselves for as<br />
long as they could stand upright. Finally they even shed their hauberks. Then it was easy<br />
for the English [bowmen] to find their unprotected parts.” The account may seem<br />
fanciful, 128 but it is the fancy of the traditional berserk fighting style, much like that of<br />
Tukulti-Ninurta’s warriors over two thousand years earlier. Besides, as after Caligula’s<br />
murder, it was typical that a warband turned recklessly berserk to avenge their slain<br />
leader.<br />
Women too could fight berserk-like, for traditionally some women fought alongside<br />
<strong>Germanic</strong> warriors. 129 Indeed, one of the last known berserks was a woman in North<br />
America. Eiriks saga reports that about AD 1020 the Greenlanders, who under Karlsefni<br />
had come to settle in Vinland, saw a huge host of Skraelings (Indians) bearing down on<br />
them. As the Skraelings flung rocks at them from slings, the Greenlanders fled to a cliff<br />
wall to make their stand. The woman Freydis had stayed indoors. When she went outside<br />
to follow the men, the Skraelings made for her. She snatched the sword of a dead<br />
Greenlander, “freeing her breasts from under her clothes and slapped the naked sword on<br />
them, at which the Skraelings took fright, ran back to their boats and rowed away.<br />
Karlsefni’s men came up to her and praised her courage.” Fighting bare-breasted and
Naked berserks 69<br />
frightening her foes with unwonted, reckless courage, Freydis came close to being a<br />
berserk. 130<br />
Berserks in Saxo Grammaticus<br />
The tales and poems of thirteenth-century Saxo Grammaticus about Denmark’s legendary<br />
kings are closely related to the Icelandic sagas and give a similar picture. Saxo’s<br />
legendary hero Asmund, when he sees that his son has been killed on the battlefield,<br />
wants to die too, but in a blaze of glory he said:<br />
Sword with both hands gripped is best.<br />
Away the shield and bare the breast,<br />
fight with shining blades!<br />
Let our fame for fierceness glow<br />
Keenly let us grind the foe.<br />
Loathsome is a lengthy fight<br />
End our onslaught with their flight. 131<br />
Having said that, Asmund took the sword in both hands and with the shield flung on his<br />
back regardless of the risk, killed several foes. Later he came to grief. 132<br />
Of Orvendil, father of Hamlet, Saxo says “the heat of his heart made him keener to get<br />
at the foe than to armor his body. He did not care for a shield and laid both hands to the<br />
sword. Nor did his daring lack results.” 133<br />
King Hrólf s champion Bothvar Bjarki, the bear-warrior, bids his twelve followers as<br />
they go to a hopeless fight: “Listen, brave ones! No one shall clad his doomed body in a<br />
hauberk! Be it the last thing to strap on mail! The shields go on the back, let us fight barechested!<br />
Put gold on your hands and rings on your arms so they will strike stronger and<br />
deal a bitter wound! No one turn backward!” 134 Bjarki’s men are to fight like berserks,<br />
bare-chested and without shields. It is of great interest to see that they also wear gold on<br />
their hands, very likely part of the berserk style, to taunt the enemy. 135 The golden rings<br />
on the right arm may be a symbol of being in the warband. 136<br />
Bjarki’s men, according to Saxo, must not yield ground, which may have been part of<br />
the berserk warrior style. The laws of Viking warrior bands forbade giving ground, a<br />
further hint that this was a berserk custom. Even the tenth-century English warband in<br />
The Battle of Maldon, swearing not to give ground, may have acted as berserks, avenging<br />
the death of their leader. 137<br />
Berserks like Bjarki are found in the visual arts as well. Four twelfth-century chess<br />
sets, found on the Isle of Lewis in the Outer Hebrides, boast rooks who bite their shields<br />
like berserks to flaunt their readiness for reckless fighting (Figure 5.4).<br />
Carved in walrus ivory in twelfth-century Scandinavia, these rooks are Christians, for<br />
they stand next to bishops, yet they show traits of true berserks. Not only do they bite the<br />
rim of their shield, they wear a helmet but no
<strong>Ancient</strong> <strong>Germanic</strong> warriors 70<br />
Figure 5.4 Berserk biting his shield.<br />
Ivory chess piece from the Isle of<br />
Lewis, Outer Hebrides. Photograph<br />
15880-front. Copyright: The Trustees<br />
of the National Museums of Scotland.<br />
hauberk; hence they scorn armor. Like Bjarki’s men, they wear a ring on the right arm.<br />
Besides, as rooks they are the king’s battle lords and champions, much as in the sagas.<br />
King Harald Wartooth, says Saxo, at one time gave striking proof of his bravery:<br />
wearing a shirt that only reached up to his armpits, he faced spears with his chest<br />
unguarded. The shirt resembles the war-garb of the Armilausi shown on scene 36 of<br />
Trajan’s Column (Figure 0.2), which, as the tribal name implies, was worn with pride as
Naked berserks 71<br />
a token of bravery. Saxo therefore very likely echoes here a tradition through the<br />
centuries. As Harald wore this shirt in a specific battle, it was a fighting style one could<br />
adopt, or not, at will. 138<br />
King Haldan, according to Saxo, overcame several berserks. Of these Sivald and his<br />
seven sons were typical in that they were skilled in sorcery and often, in sudden fits of<br />
madness, bellowed wildly, bit their shields, swallowed hot coals, and walked through any<br />
fire. Haldan killed them with an oak he had torn out of the ground and likewise smashed<br />
the berserk Harthben who had been wreaking his Iust on princesses. Harthben was said to<br />
be nine cubits tall, which at 4.5 meters is more than twice as tall as the tallest men.<br />
Harthben had twelve champions as mess-mates to hold him down when he had a fit of<br />
madness. When Haldan challenged him, he became so mad he took hard bites out of the<br />
rim of his shield, gulped down fiery coals, walked through blazing flames, and went so<br />
berserk that he killed six of his own champions. Berserks could withstand fire since the<br />
“heat” that their fury created within them overcame the outer heat of the fire. 139<br />
Grimmi, also a ravager of princesses, by his gaze blunted Haldan’s first sword, but<br />
Haldan drew another and cut off Grimmi’s hand. That berserks could blunt the first<br />
sword of their foes with their gaze is known from several other instances in Saxo and the<br />
sagas. It is an uncanny skill they share with Woden and the Master Grendel. 140<br />
In the sagas and Saxo, berserks are notorious for taking other men’s wives or<br />
daughters against their will. If berserks are indeed related to Chatti longhairs, a reason for<br />
their demands is easy to find. Having no families of their own and being outstanding<br />
warriors as well as honored guests, custom may have allowed them to sleep with the wife<br />
or a daughter of their host, as Rigs did in the Eddic poem of the Rigsthula. If thwarted,<br />
they would have fought over this, as, according to Saxo and the sagas, Nordic berserks<br />
did so often. It fits this theory that unlike robbers they brought the women home again<br />
after a week or two. 141<br />
The sagas and the legends of Saxo Grammaticus offer a rich tableau of berserk<br />
thoughts and deeds. To be sure, the more than two hundred years between heathen<br />
berserks and the writing down of sagas must have changed these tales very much. They<br />
thus reflect berserk warriordom only as in a broken mirror. Nevertheless, such berserk<br />
fighting techniques as being the first to open battles, scorning armor, flinging one’s shield<br />
on the back, or wearing only a helmet, match earlier evidence of mad, naked warriors and<br />
thus report true features of the ancient berserk style. This being so, there is a certain<br />
likelihood that other berserk customs known only from sagas and Saxo but not, or little,<br />
from antiquity, such as two-handed sword fighting, yielding no ground, wearing rings,<br />
snorting and snarling, howling like wolves, and biting through windpipes, also come<br />
from antiquity.<br />
Such conclusions are tenuous. There is no telling whether shield-biting is ancient, for<br />
it is odd and not known from before the time of the sagas. And while we hear that Italic<br />
wolf-warriors of antiquity could not be hurt by fire or iron, we do not know whether<br />
ancient Germani too held this belief about wolf-warriors, bear-warriors, and berserks,<br />
along with the related belief that one could kill them only with clubs. Even so, what we
<strong>Ancient</strong> <strong>Germanic</strong> warriors 72<br />
know of the history of Indo-European berserks shows the abidingness of warrior styles. 142<br />
The berserk warrior style lasted as long as native culture stayed intact. The berserks’<br />
social underpinning lay in their role as elite warriors, often as guards and champions of<br />
kings, or as kings themselves. Their religious underpinning was belief in Woden, hence it<br />
took Christinanity to undo the berserk style, as it undid Woden’s wolf- and bear-warrior<br />
styles. 143
6<br />
GHOSTS<br />
Their shields are black, their bodies painted, and, choosing<br />
dark nights for their battles, they spread panic by the fear<br />
and spookiness of an army of ghosts.<br />
Tacitus, Germania<br />
<strong>Germanic</strong> ghost-warriors, disputed by scholars, are borne out by a Greek parallel. In the<br />
fourth century BC, Athenian youths at the age of 16–18 years spent two years as ephebe<br />
borderguards. Only by doing so could they join the rolls of the army and become full<br />
citizens. The institution, though much revised, had roots in the Bronze Age. The youths<br />
served in frontier forts as lightly armed peripoloi, “those who circle around.” 1 They<br />
engaged also in night-time ambushes, 2 and wore black cloaks. 3 The myth of the Apaturia<br />
festival at which they became full citizens told of Melas, “The Black,” who won a fight<br />
by trickery and seized Melainai, “The Black Country,” through the intervention of<br />
“Night-Dionysos of the black goat skin.”<br />
In ancient Greece, black-dressed hunters who laid traps and set nets at night were<br />
loners like Hippolytos, who lived in the wild. This was the mode of life of Spartan<br />
kryptaia youths as well as Athenian ephebes. 4 In their initiation ceremonies ephebes, notyet-men,<br />
dressed as girls, like Achilles on Skyros. With light weapons, trickery, and<br />
disorganized life in the wild, through stealth and night exploits, Greek ephebes<br />
perpetuated an old warrior style that stood in direct contrast to that of heavily armed<br />
hoplite citizens. 5<br />
All this helps one understand Tacitus’ description of the Harii among the east<br />
<strong>Germanic</strong> tribes:<br />
Suffice it to mention the strongest tribes [of the Lugii], the Harii,<br />
Helveconae, Manimi, Helisii, and Nahanarvali. Among the Nahanarvali<br />
they show a grove of ancient worship. The high priest is dressed like a<br />
woman, but the gods are called [in Roman translation] Castor and Pollux:<br />
that is the character of their godhead, their name is “Alcis.” There are no<br />
images and no trace of foreign belief, although they are worshiped as<br />
brothers and young men. Moreover, besides leading in strength the<br />
peoples mentioned above, the [Harii] are fierce and heighten their inborn<br />
ferocity by artful means and timing. Their shields are black, their bodies<br />
painted, and, choosing dark nights for their battles, they spread panic by<br />
the fear and spookiness of an army of ghosts. No foe can withstand that<br />
startling and, as it were, underworld-like sight, for in every fight the eyes<br />
are overcome first. 6
<strong>Ancient</strong> <strong>Germanic</strong> warriors 74<br />
The fighting style of the Harii closely parallels that of Athenian ephebes. Both appear<br />
black and attack at night. It is of course practical when fighting at night to darken oneself<br />
so as not to be seen: modern soldiers daub their faces for night combat. But while night<br />
attacks are known the world over, they cannot be the only way for an army to fight, as<br />
one must be ready to fight in daylight as well. 7 Among classical Greeks night attacks<br />
were the opposite of regular warfare: the decisive heavy-armed hoplites fought in<br />
daylight in open fields. The same must have been true for Lugii, for as some Athenian<br />
ephebes at ceremonies wore womanly dress to mark them as not-yet-men, so Lugian high<br />
priests of the Alcis officiated in womanly garb. 8 Since Tacitus (implicitly) connects these<br />
priests to black night-warriors, one may infer that Alcis worshipers too were not-yet-men,<br />
worshiping the young warrior gods Castor and Pollux since they themselves were<br />
youths. 9<br />
A mistake in the manuscript tradition makes it uncertain to which tribe the nightfighters<br />
belonged. The manuscripts read alii, “others,” but a tribe or tribal grouping ought<br />
to be meant, for they surpass other tribes in strength. Most scholars thus read Arii<br />
(=Harii), which is palaeographically closest, but others think of Lugii or (implied)<br />
Nahanarvali. 10 Recent studies conclude that the Indo-European word koryos (<strong>Germanic</strong><br />
haryaz) means army of the young. 11 The Harii were thus either young warriors of the<br />
Lugii, or a tribe that sprang from young Lugii. 12 In either case, fighting by stealth at night<br />
befits them well, as does the ceremony in women’s dress at the Lugian shrine. It seems<br />
best, therefore, to read [Harii] in Tacitus’ passage. 13<br />
Whether the Harii were a tribe of their own, as Tacitus says, or Lugii youths, it is clear<br />
that ghostly, black, night-fighting youths were a <strong>Germanic</strong> warrior style. 14 Tacitus could<br />
have had detailed knowledge of Lugii, for Roman traders passed through their land on the<br />
way to the amber-bearing Baltic coast. Very likely they reported what they heard and<br />
saw: one can still hear Lugian bragging in Tacitus’ account. 15 The trustworthiness of that<br />
account is strengthened by the Edda and Icelandic sagas, where netherworld figures are<br />
black and, at the end of the world, an army of the dead under Surt (“The Black One”)<br />
rides to the battle of Ragnarök. 16<br />
Ghosts haunt by frightening. Shades of the dead threaten to take the living to the world<br />
below, and to fight them is grim, for one cannot kill the dead. 17 For these reasons alone it<br />
is likely that Lugian night-warriors played on the “fear and spookiness” of mythical ghost<br />
warriors. 18 From what we know of Indo-European and world-wide parallels as well as<br />
other <strong>Germanic</strong> warrior styles, the Harii did indeed body forth Woden’s Wild Host. 19<br />
With tribal wolf-warriors, the Harii shared youth, stealth, wildness, and Dioscuri<br />
worship. 20 The two styles thus overlapped, as did other warrior styles—understandably<br />
so, since a tribe could have several youth troops. 21<br />
Romans gladly made use of <strong>Germanic</strong> bare-bodied night-fighting skills (Figure 7.2),<br />
and strong Indo-European parallels warrant the Lugian institution of ghost warriors.<br />
Blackened night-fighting thus was an Indo-European warrior style of the young, known<br />
among Indians, Iranians, Greeks, and Celts, as well as ancient Germani. 22
Part 3<br />
STRONG MEN
7<br />
CLUB-WIELDERS<br />
They threw huge, fire-hardened clubs at our men, stabbed<br />
those who stood firm with blades in the chest, and broke<br />
through our left wing.<br />
Ammianus Marcellinus<br />
Indo-European club-wielders<br />
Clubs, man’s oldest weapons, are found world-wide. In tribal warfare they played a great<br />
role. Africans trained in their use from boyhood on, Polynesians were famous for their<br />
fearsome clubs, and North American Indians excelled in their use. Clubs also have<br />
drawbacks: “many people have used…a war club light enough to be thrown but heavy<br />
enough to crush,” yet, says Turney-High,<br />
clubs are really poor weapons. Only a powerful man can throw them far.<br />
No one can hurl them with the accuracy of the arrow or even the spear.<br />
They are too heavy for any fighter to carry many of them to battle. Their<br />
manufacture is expensive in time and skill. Worst of all, their slow<br />
movement and large bulk make them easy to see, they are easy to predict,<br />
and therefore very easy to dodge. They must rely on the stunning capacity<br />
of their weight, for their piercing power is nil.<br />
All this is true for primitive bands, but neither horsemen nor the tightly crammed foot<br />
soldiers of more advanced societies can easily dodge the crushing blows of clubs. 1<br />
Wielded by strong men, clubs were also weapons of prestige. 2 Throughout the ages,<br />
Indo-European gods and heroes, such as Indra, Bhima, Vayu, Kŗsaspa, Herakles, and<br />
Thor, fought with clubs in the grand heroic fighting style. A relief from Kernosovka,<br />
north of the Black Sea, dating to about 3000 BC, shows the earliest known Indo-<br />
European club-wielder. The Greek warrior name Meleager (“Caring for the Club”) and<br />
the <strong>Germanic</strong> name Odoacar (Auda-Wakraz: “Rich in Weapons”) are both related to<br />
Indra’s famous vajra club. Mycenaean and Greek warriors fought with clubs, and<br />
Scythians in Roman times were skilled club-men. 3 The club-wielding style is brought out<br />
well by Silius Italicus who writes of a Spanish warrior of the third century BC:<br />
He had no spear in hand, no helmet on his head but trusting in his broad<br />
shoulders and strapping youth he laid waste the troops with his club,<br />
needing no sword. 4
<strong>Ancient</strong> <strong>Germanic</strong> warriors 78<br />
Men took pride in being so strong that they needed no armor or other weapon to frighten<br />
their foes.<br />
<strong>Germanic</strong> club-wielders on Trajan’s Column<br />
To Romans, <strong>Germanic</strong> warriors stood frightfully tall and strong. Skeletons confirm this. 5<br />
No wonder, then, that <strong>Germanic</strong> club-men loom large on Trajan’s Column. A clubwielder<br />
appears in scene 24 that depicts the battle at Tapae (Figure 7.1).<br />
Like club-men in other scenes of the Column, this one wears long, baggy trousers and<br />
shoes. His sword hangs not on a baldric but is fastened to his belt on the left hip. Not<br />
widening along the shaft, his knotted short club ends in a knob. Before him his battered<br />
Dacian foe, struck by the club, has sunken to his knees, gasping and moaning and holding<br />
his shield overhead. 6 The club-wielder towers head and shoulders over everyone nearby:<br />
he is taller even than the horseman behind him. His arm and weapon raised, he reaches as<br />
high as some figures in the middle ground, a truly strapping stalwart, a club-man like<br />
Orion, Herkules, or Thor. His muscular build, like that of mythic club-men, makes him a<br />
fit user of a weapon that can pass on a man’s whole strength.<br />
Size, bare chest, and weaponry mark the warrior in scene 24 as a <strong>Germanic</strong> tribesman,<br />
though he does not appear uncouth. His hair, less shaggy than that of the Dacians, is<br />
ordered, his beard trimmed, and his face relaxed—perhaps to make victory seem well in<br />
hand. 7 Since Indo-European heroes and <strong>Germanic</strong> leaders often wielded clubs, this man,<br />
like other club-wielders on Trajan’s Column, may have served as a high-ranking elite<br />
warrior. 8<br />
Among the emperor’s strike force rushing along to Lower Moesia in scene 36 of the<br />
Column, a club-wielder is perhaps the most eye-catching figure (Figure 0.2). As brawny<br />
and tall as the strapping tribesmen around him, he sports a pointed chin-beard, baggy<br />
trousers, and a rather grim look (made worse, perhaps, by the weathering of this side of<br />
the Column). In his left hand he holds a shield and on his right side a sword hangs from<br />
the baldric. The club in his right is thin at the handle and widens toward the tip. Like<br />
other men in the scene, he holds his weapon ready: he will fight with the club first and<br />
only then with his sword.<br />
In scene 38, in which Trajan’s Lower Moesian strike force swings into action, two barechested<br />
warriors, wearing baggy trousers tucked into their shoes, also wield clubs (Figure<br />
7.2). 9<br />
The scene is a night attack on Dacian raiders. Half-naked club-men, fast and quiet,<br />
were good troops for this. Three of them are shown, one, with a curved knife, far to the<br />
right, two others with clubs. The two warriors to the left, splendid types as seen in the<br />
frontispiece, show no fighting madness, which is proper for a stealth attack—and greatly<br />
to the credit of their Roman leader.
Club-wielders 79<br />
Figure 7.1 Club-wielder with shield<br />
and sword. Trajan’s Column, scene 24.<br />
Photo: Deutsches Archäologisches<br />
Institut, Rome, Inst. Neg. 91.100.
<strong>Ancient</strong> <strong>Germanic</strong> warriors 80<br />
Figure 7.2 Club-men, fighting.<br />
Trajan’s column, scene 38. Photo:<br />
Deutsches Archaologisches Institut,<br />
Rome, Inst. Neg. 41.1294.<br />
Their clubs differ in shape. The one belonging to the warrior in the middle is thick and<br />
straight, and best suited for bashing. The knotted club of the warrior on the left, on the<br />
other hand, is thin, slightly curved, gripped up from the end, and hence suitable also for<br />
throwing. Perhaps this is why he stands not in the front line but farther back from the<br />
fighting, 10 although there is no telling whether he is about to throw his club or use it for<br />
bashing.<br />
The third bare-chested, trousered warrior, further right, fights foremost in the fray.<br />
From his looks and being nearby he belongs to the same troop, even though he holds no<br />
club but a curved sword. His sword has been called a mistake. The artist, it has been said,<br />
curved the sword to make it bend around the head of the enemy kneeling there. However,<br />
since scenes 24 and 36 of the Column (Figures 0.2 and 7.1) show swords as the fall-back<br />
weapon for club-men, the wielder of the curved sword here seems to have thrown or lost<br />
his club first and then drawn his sword. The blade’s curved shape need not be doubted,
Club-wielders 81<br />
for as we will see in Chapter 18, bare-chested, <strong>Germanic</strong> warriors did indeed use curved<br />
swords. 11<br />
The combination of club and curved sword is not invented by the artist of the Column.<br />
Vergil reports the joint use of these two weapons among Italic Oscan warriors—and of<br />
Oscans he says that they threw clubs “like Germani.” Vergil thus knew a <strong>Germanic</strong><br />
warrior style that combined throwing club and curved sword. Reporting the same<br />
combination of club and curved sword, poet and Column confirm each other: this was an<br />
acknowledged warrior style. It was also practical and efficient, since the two weapons<br />
complement each other: the club stuns an enemy and the light sword finishes him off. 12<br />
Three further bare-chested warriors, one of them fallen, appear in scene 66 of the<br />
Column. Wearing shoes and trousers, they are almost certainly club-men, not berserk<br />
swordsmen, even though their weapons are not shown. One of them lies dead on the<br />
ground, his head hidden behind a shield. He is the only “Roman” casualty in all the<br />
reliefs on the Column. It is so astonishing to see a slain soldier of the Roman side that<br />
scholars overlooked him. Perhaps some battlefield realism slipped in. Nor is it<br />
happenstance that the dead warrior is a bare-chested club-wielder, for <strong>Germanic</strong><br />
tribesmen risked their lives freely and with astounding recklessness. 13 On the other hand,<br />
Trajan’s Column prefers to depict fighting tribesmen in order to downplay the loss of<br />
Roman blood 14 —it seemed better to lose foreign rather than Roman troops in battle, and<br />
more glorious to win victory through the shedding of foreign, rather than Roman blood. 15<br />
Tacitus thrilled at the thought of tribesmen killing tribesmen, as did fourth- and fifthcentury<br />
Romans, though that did little to bring back Rome’s military strength. 16<br />
In scene 70 of the Column (Figure 9.1), a club-wielder fights in the attack shield castle<br />
that moves against the Dacians. The others, all auxiliaries, wield spears, but he raises a<br />
club. With bowmen and slingers fighting from the rear, the picture seems well laid out<br />
and trustworthy, hence one may infer with a certain likelihood that club-wielders did<br />
indeed fight in the front line of shield walls, and if they did so in Trajan’s army, they did<br />
so in <strong>Germanic</strong> armies as well. 17<br />
Trajan’s Column does not overstate the use of clubs by tribesmen, it gives it due<br />
weight. Wooden clubs in an army with advanced metallurgy prove the efficiency of the<br />
weapon as well as the strength and fighting spirit of their users. Even Stone Age weapons<br />
could be useful against well-equipped troops of antiquity: witness the Ethiopian bowmen<br />
in Xerxes’ army invading Greece in 490 BC. 18 In the same way Trajan, with all his<br />
legionaries and praetorians, relied on tribal club-men as his attack force.<br />
Trajan’s club-wielding warriors, unlike his swordsmen, wear baggy trousers and<br />
shoes, as do most <strong>Germanic</strong> warriors. 19 That they have taken off their shirts for battle sets<br />
the club-men apart, though not as much as barefooted warriors. On the very accurate<br />
second-century sarcophagus from Portonaccio, all wear long-sleeved shirts save for the<br />
two warriors who dive beneath the enemy horses (Figures 17.4, 18.2). 20 To take off one’s<br />
shirt for battle, then, was something of a berserk gesture, a display of greater recklessness<br />
and bravery—and no doubt also of one’s brawn, as with American Indian braves, for<br />
shirtless warriors looked tough and weather-hardened. 21 Bare-chested warriors, though<br />
outdone in nakedness by barefooted ones, thus passed for being braver than those in<br />
shirts or armor. Berserk-like bare-chestedness was part of the club-wielder warrior style.
<strong>Ancient</strong> <strong>Germanic</strong> warriors 82<br />
A second-century horse chest guard, broken off from a triumphal bronze statue in<br />
Transylvania, may (or may not) depict scenes from Trajan’s Dacian war. One of its<br />
bronze figures shows a tall, half-naked, trousered club-wielder (Figure 7.3). 22<br />
The foot warrior wields a club, not a sword, as has been said, for the weapon in his<br />
hand widens towards the tip in striking contrast with the sword of the horseman behind<br />
him. Further behind, another club-wielder once followed, now lost but still outlined by<br />
the gap in the gilding. On the right-hand side, now broken off, there was a similar set of<br />
figures of which only the club-man survives.<br />
The club-wielders on this chest guard are far taller than the horsemen. Being tall and<br />
half-naked, they are Germani, very likely those who came with Trajan and who, as scene<br />
36 of the Column shows, conquered Dacia side by side with Roman horsemen. As on the<br />
Column, the club-men are giants, and serve among Rome’s main attack troops, for to<br />
Greeks and Romans the tallest were the most fearsome fighters (if also the most<br />
vulnerable to arrows and javelins). 23 Horsemen wielding swords, rarely seen in Roman<br />
art, were likewise attack troops eager to close with the enemy. 24<br />
In Trajan’s time <strong>Germanic</strong> warriors worshiped a god whom the Romans called<br />
Herkules and who therefore must have wielded a club. His cult was<br />
Figure 7.3 Club-wielder and horseman<br />
on the attack. Horse chest guard from<br />
Transylvania. Photo: Ioan Piso, Cluj.<br />
widespread, for many club-amulets have been found. Clubs as weapons would have<br />
drawn prestige from the worship of this god. Club-wielding warriors, singing the praise<br />
of the god as they went into battie, no doubt felt strengthened by his power as they fought<br />
mythic battles. 25<br />
Tacitus makes the point that a custom of the Suebi and Aestii in the furthest Northeast<br />
was to use clubs rather than iron weapons. 26 The further away from Roman civilization,<br />
the more he expected primitive weapons to be used—rightly perhaps.
Club-wielders 83<br />
Throwing clubs as makeshift weapons<br />
Throwing clubs proved decisive in AD 376 at “The Willows” (Ad Salices) near the Black<br />
Sea. There, tribal club-throwers overcame a Roman field army, which led directly to the<br />
Goths’ great victory at Adrianople. The Goths, Ammianus says, suffered reverses, but<br />
then,<br />
always quick and resourceful, they threw huge, fire-hardened clubs at our<br />
men, stabbed those who stood firm with blades in the chest, and broke<br />
through our left wing. 27<br />
At the Willows, as on Trajan’s Column, the same warriors used clubs and blades. When<br />
Ammianus says that “barbarians” are always quick and resourceful (reparabiles semper<br />
et celeres) he does not mean that ingenuity allowed them to quickly come up with new<br />
kinds of weapons, but that they made new clubs in a hurry, on the spot. 28 Throwing-clubs<br />
as makeshift weapons are known from Rome’s Thracian war in AD 26, when the<br />
beleaguered Thracians in a last, desperate attempt to break out, pelted the siege-wall<br />
garrison with rocks, fire-hardened spears, and freshly cut oak clubs. 29 So it was at the<br />
Willows: all that mattered in the heat of battle was to have enough clubs, and roughly<br />
hewn ones were good enough. Indeed, some thought that rough clubs were even pithier<br />
weapons. 30 Since the Goths fought near their camp they could have stockpiled such clubs<br />
to throw them at the heavily armored Roman foot.<br />
Clubs thrown in battle are easily lost. <strong>Warriors</strong> in such widely separated cultures as<br />
Oscans and Hawaiians thus tied strings to their well-wrought clubs to retrieve them.<br />
Commenting on Vergil, Servius says that <strong>Germanic</strong> club-throwers did the same. Perhaps,<br />
then, some had well-wrought clubs they wanted to retrieve by strings. 31<br />
As ancient Germani made many weapons only of wood, studies of their weaponry<br />
based on metallic finds grasp only half the truth, and greater efforts are needed to gather<br />
evidence of wooden weapons. 32 Trajan’s Column offers some such evidence in its<br />
portrayal of clubs. Clearly, with wooden clubs and with rocks to be thrown, <strong>Germanic</strong><br />
warriors could quickly replenish their weapon supplies and almost always had the means<br />
to fight from afar or hand to hand.<br />
Throwing clubs are known still from the early Middle Ages. Isidore, bishop of<br />
Visigoth Seville until AD 636, comments on Vergil’s Teutonic clubs:<br />
The club (clava) is Hercules’ weapon, so called because it is held together<br />
by iron nails (claves). It is a foot and a half in length. Such is also the<br />
cateia, which Horace calls caia. It is a Frankish (Gallica) weapon made<br />
from the hardest wood. When hurled, being heavy, it won’t fly far, but<br />
will smash with the utmost strength. If thrown by someone skilled, it<br />
comes back to him. Thinking of this, Vergil [Aeneid 7.741] says of the<br />
Abellians: “wonted to fling clubs as the Teutons do.” That is why<br />
Visigoths (Hispani) and Franks (Galli) call them tautani. 33
<strong>Ancient</strong> <strong>Germanic</strong> warriors 84<br />
Since Isidore speaks of Teutons, his Hispani seem to be the Visigoths and his Galli the<br />
Merovingian Franks of his own day. Both these nations thus used throwing clubs as late<br />
as the seventh century AD, and with smashing effect. 34<br />
Isidore’s claim that the heavy club, skillfully hurled, came back to the thrower, cannot<br />
be true, for it is physically impossible. However, Indo-Europeans believed that the<br />
weapons of the gods returned to the hand of the thrower after each throw, an<br />
understandable belief in light of the fact that Germani still used boomerangs in the third<br />
century AD (they deposited several such bird-hunting weapons in a moor at Oberdorla,<br />
Thüringen). The wonder of the boomerang is readily ascribed to the weapon of a god,<br />
hence Isidore’s notion of the Teutonic war club as boomerang seems to echo tales of<br />
Thor’s hammer Mjöllnir, a heavy club that returned to the god’s hand after each throw. 35<br />
Club-men against armored horsemen<br />
In the third and fourth centuries, club-swingers overcame the most fearsome weapon of<br />
late antiquity, the iron-clad catafractarii or clibanarii horsemen. It seems that this<br />
decisive military achievement is owed to northern tribesmen.<br />
Trajan’s Column records no fighting against horsemen, for to show Dacian foes on<br />
horseback would make them too proud. The spiral reliefs thus give no clue as to what<br />
club-wielders could do against cavalry. The relief on the southeast socle of the Column,<br />
however, seems to depict a long, straight club with a sling at the handle. 36 The sling,<br />
allowing for an even farther reach, makes it likely that this is a club for use against<br />
armored horsemen. Heavy armor called for the use of clubs to counter it. Remarkably,<br />
this fighting technique is found on the Danubian frontier rather than in the East where<br />
mailed horsemen abound.<br />
In summer of AD 272 at Hemesa, Emperor Aurelian faced the forces of Zenobia,<br />
queen of Palmyra. The armored Palmyrene horsemen at first drove off the Roman horse,<br />
Zosimus reports, but then Roman foot fell upon them:<br />
Some went at them with the usual weapons, but those from Palestine<br />
struck their iron- and bronze-clad foes with clubs and maces which in<br />
great part won the day, for the foe was terror-stricken by the outlandish<br />
attack with clubs. 37<br />
Who were “those from Palestine”? Not traditional Roman soldiers, for to Romans clubs<br />
were weapons not of the army but of the police. 38 Moreover, in that year Palestine still<br />
belonged to the Palmyrenes or at best had only just been freed, hence Aurelian could not<br />
have drawn battle-deciding troops from there. Nor were these club-men native<br />
Palestinians or troops stationed there under the Palmyrenes, for their fighting style struck<br />
the Palmyrenes as outlandish. They must have come from far away, then, not from the<br />
eastern frontier. Clearly they were part of the army Aurelian brought from the West.<br />
Zosimus’ reference to them as troops “from Palestine” is readily explained: under<br />
Gallienus, field detachments from Palestine had been stationed in the West. Before taking<br />
these detachments back to Palestine, Aurelian, if he treated them like other field<br />
detachments, bolstered them with <strong>Germanic</strong> recruits while keeping their provincial
Club-wielders 85<br />
name. 39 By Aurelian’s time, Frankish and Alamannic warriors had long experience in<br />
fighting catafract horsemen, and for that reason are likely to be the club-men who<br />
decided the battle of Hemesa. 40 Twenty years later, northern club-men formed a palatine<br />
legion of their own, the Mattiarii. 41<br />
In AD 312 the club-wielding tactics described by Zosimus won the battle at Torino for<br />
Emperor Constantine. A speaker praising Constantine’s generalship at Torino says that<br />
Constantine’s elite troops overcame Maxentius’ heavily mailed clibanarii horsemen by<br />
letting them pass into their ranks where the emperor stood, and then striking the riders’<br />
heads with their clubs and stabbing the horses:<br />
They attacked the armored horsemen with clubs that by striking with their<br />
heavy, iron-studded knots drubbed the wound-proof horsemen and, aimed<br />
above all at their heads, brought down those whom they had knocked into<br />
a daze. Then they began to fall head-long, to slide over backwards, to jerk<br />
about half-dead, to hang in their saddles dying, to lie entangled in the<br />
slaughter of the horses who, when a spot to wound them was found, in<br />
unbridled pain threw their riders everywhere. 42<br />
The club- and sword-wielding troops won the day. The club-men must have been highly<br />
skilled as well as fearless not to run away when the dread ironclad catafracts rode toward<br />
them. After the battle, orators praised Constantine lavishly for personally leading these<br />
fighters, clearly elite troops.<br />
Libanius mentions the same kind of fighting later in the fourth century. Of<br />
Constantius’ soldiers facing the Persians, he writes:<br />
The warrior on foot sidesteps the horse that comes up against him and<br />
thus foils its move. Then, as the horseman rides by, he strikes him with<br />
the club on the side of the head and brings him down. The rest is easy. 43<br />
Side-stepping a horse must have called for great nimbleness such as only unarmored,<br />
“naked” troops would have.<br />
These accounts of the battles of Hemesa and Torino, as well as Libanius’ description<br />
of Constantius’ soldiers against the Persians, reveal the fighting technique of club-men<br />
against horsemen. Though overlooked by specialists of Roman weaponry, these accounts,<br />
coming from three different authors, are likely to be trustworthy. 44<br />
Club-wielders in the Middle Ages<br />
<strong>Germanic</strong> warriors used clubs throughout antiquity and the early Middle Ages. 45 The<br />
large golden horn from Gallehus in Denmark depicts a fifth-century throwing or bashing<br />
club that broadens toward the tip, has a deeply carved handle, and looks much like a club<br />
on Trajan’s Column over three hundred years earlier. The fifth-century bracteate<br />
medallion from Års in Denmark (Figure 11.2), shows Woden wielding a big, knotted club<br />
whose very thick head suggests that it is meant for striking rather than throwing. The
<strong>Ancient</strong> <strong>Germanic</strong> warriors 86<br />
club, as the weapon of the god, thus was still a weapon of prestige in the north during the<br />
sixth century. 46<br />
Clubs had their use. No iron blade, only a huge club, could bring down Thorir Hound<br />
in his magic wolfskin hood. Clubs likewise were the only weapons availing against<br />
berserks, whom neither fire or steel could hurt. And Woden, having made Harald<br />
Wartooth of Denmark wound-proof, in the end killed him with his own club. 47<br />
Understandably, clubs were weapons of giants. Early <strong>Germanic</strong> literature speaks of<br />
heroes so strong that the iron blades of their swords shattered when they swung them:<br />
swords were of no help to such warriors, and swords did indeed shatter or break. 48 Very<br />
strong men, therefore, needed clubs. Harald Wartooth, taller and stronger than everyone<br />
else, went into battle at Bråvalla armed only with a club. Tellingly, he resembled the<br />
club-men of Trajan’s Column also in that he wore neither helmet nor hauberk—in the<br />
sense of being unarmored he was a “naked” warrior.<br />
The club as the weapon of the unarmored king was to have a long history. A seventhcentury<br />
club came to light at Konghell in Bohuslän, Sweden with a runic inscription that<br />
reads “staff of command.” From a mere weapon, the club thus became a token of<br />
command. The Bayeux tapestry, dating to the eleventh century when Norman cavalry no<br />
longer used clubs, shows William the Conqueror leading his army into Brittany: taller<br />
and broader-shouldered than other warriors, in a purple cloak, wielding a club and<br />
wearing neither helmet nor hauberk, he rides ahead of his fully armored guard. 49 As<br />
leader of Norman warriors who upheld customs brought from Norway and Denmark,<br />
William stands in the tradition of Harald Wartooth and, even further back, in the tradition<br />
of the club-men on Trajan’s Column. By his lack of a hauberk he underscores that he<br />
fears no wounds, and by his club he flaunts his strength. In eleventh-century Norman<br />
belief, Woden rides ahead of his warriors, huge and wielding a club. 50 In AD 813<br />
Charlemagne forbade his warriors to muster with clubs (bacula) as their weapons. 51 Why<br />
he did so is unknown. Perhaps the clubs he forbade were all-wooden weapons. Irontipped<br />
clubs for striking horsemen (goedendags) remained a very effective weapon in<br />
medieval warfare. With them, Flemish foot wasted the flower of French knighthood at<br />
Courtrai in 1302. 52 Though there is no evidence to prove it, the old Frankish club may<br />
never have fallen out of use between Charlemagne’s time and Courtrai.<br />
Clubs were widely used in the Middle Ages. At Stiklastad in 1030, Norwegians threw<br />
clubs against enemy foot. At Hastings in 1066, Anglo-Saxons threw clubs (with a stone<br />
tied to the shaft) against armored Norman horsemen. 53 In the thirteenth century Saxo tells<br />
how Thor shattered the shields of his foes with his frightening club. As in the beginning,<br />
the club was the weapon of the uncommonly strong and was best used against armor or<br />
shields. 54 As Thor’s weapon it must have been held in high regard, and so perhaps were<br />
its throwers.
8<br />
WIELDERS OF HUGE SPEARS<br />
[Woden’s] spear never halted in its thrust.<br />
Skáldskaparmál<br />
Big spears have a long history among Indo-Europeans. In a wall painting from around<br />
1550 BC on the Greek island of Thera, a line of Achaean warriors hold spears more than<br />
twice their own length. Hector’s spear in the Iliad is over five meters long. In Rome, too,<br />
large spears brought prestige: Vergil’s Messapus owned a beamlike spear (hasta trabalis)<br />
as did the war goddess Bellona. Gauls are said to have had “swords larger than other<br />
peoples’ spears, and spear blades larger than other peoples’ swords.” 1<br />
Bronze Age rock carvings in southern Sweden, made by ancient Germani or their<br />
forerunners, show a warrior with a giant spear, clearly meant to impress with the might of<br />
the weapon and the strength of the wielder, perhaps Woden himself (Figure 8.1). 2<br />
The drawing shows a spear more than twice as long as its bearer and with a huge<br />
blade. Like the long spear, the big shield suggests that this warrior fought in a shield wall<br />
formation. The size of his weapons helps one under-stand what Tacitus says about the use<br />
of big spears at the beginning of our era. In his Germania Tacitus writes about <strong>Germanic</strong><br />
warriors:<br />
Not even iron abounds, as one can see from the kind of weapons: Few use<br />
swords or big spears. 3<br />
Tacitus’ statement that iron does not abound among Germani implies that he believed big<br />
spears had large iron blades (and were therefore rare). Since archaeologists have found<br />
many small spear blades of the time, but only a few large ones, Tacitus was certainly<br />
right in saying that few had big spears (though not everyone agrees with his inference<br />
that iron was rare). 4<br />
In his Histories and Annals, however, Tacitus speaks of huge spears as fearsome weapons<br />
of <strong>Germanic</strong> warriors. The Cherusci, he says, fought well “with their tall limbs and huge<br />
spears, striking wounds from afar.” And the Batavi in AD 70 “with their huge bodies and<br />
overlong spears ran the wavering and slipping soldiers through from afar.” 5 Yet Tacitus’<br />
earlier Germania and his later Histories and Annals do not contradict each other, for big<br />
spears as the weapons of elite warriors in the front line were at the same time rare and<br />
fearsome.
<strong>Ancient</strong> <strong>Germanic</strong> warriors 88<br />
Figure 8.1 Wielder of a huge spear.<br />
Rock drawing from Tanum, Bohuslän.<br />
Photo after Altheim, Literatur 1948,<br />
300f. and plate XXI (with permission<br />
of Max Niemeyer Verlag).<br />
That big spears were front-line weapons is clear from several battle descriptions. Dio<br />
says that when the Suebi of Ariovistus met Caesar’s legions in 58 BC, close-up hand-tohand<br />
battle flared up so quickly that the Germani could not use their long spears. These<br />
must have belonged to men in the first line, for rear ranks could still use thrusting<br />
weapons after battle was joined. 6<br />
In AD 15 <strong>Germanic</strong>us told his soldiers not to fear the long spears of the Cherusci, for<br />
only those in the first line had them, while those further back had but short or firehardened<br />
spears. 7 There must be some truth rather than mere bravado in this, for no<br />
leader could lie to experienced soldiers about so elementary a fact and hoodwink them<br />
about what they had to face. 8 There are no grounds to doubt our sources on this point<br />
since they agree that big spears were rare and wielded only by warriors in the front line. 9
Wielders of huge spears 89<br />
In the battle at the Angrivarii wall in AD 16 the Cherusci were so hemmed in among<br />
each other that “they could neither thrust out and pull back their overlong spears, nor<br />
lunge forward and make use of their speed.” 10 The wielders of long spears in the first line<br />
thus fought nimbly, in columns (cunei) not too tight, whereas the shuttered-up shield<br />
castle of Ariovistus’ men was a strictly defensive formation.<br />
Large spear blades are found only in the rich graves of the upper class, hence those<br />
who fought with long or heavy spears in front were athelings. 11 Like Chatti long-hairs,<br />
they bodied forth an elite warrior style that ranged them in the first line of battle. Rome<br />
gladly hired such men. 12 We will meet wielders of huge spears again when looking at<br />
lancers on horseback. Strabo and Tacitus link body size with weapon size: the bigger the<br />
men, the larger the spears they wield. 13 <strong>Warriors</strong>, naturally, took pride in both, for the<br />
taller they were, the more they frightened the foe; and the longer their spear, the greater<br />
their advantage.<br />
Long spears were still used in the early Middle Ages: sixth-century Saxons wielded<br />
them. 14 But while the shield wall continued to be a major battle formation, elite warriors<br />
in the first rank seem to have turned to shorter thrusting spears, better suited for single<br />
combat.<br />
On the seventh-century Torslunda die (Figure 1.6) the wolf-warrior holds a short spear<br />
of astonishing thickness. The same is true of spears held by barritus chanters embossed<br />
on the helmet from grave 7 at Valsgärde (Figure 10.1). Some battle lords thus seem to<br />
have chosen shorter spears that kept the aristocratic long blade, but achieved powerful<br />
thrust by thickness rather than length of shaft. Thick shafts still flaunted their wielders’<br />
strength.<br />
Mighty spear shafts still awed warriors in Norway in AD 1030. Snorri Sturluson says<br />
that for the battle at Stiklastad King Olaf hired (and converted) a warrior so tall that no<br />
one came up to his shoulders. Handsome and fairhaired, the man had a fine helmet, a<br />
hauberk of chain mail, a red shield, and a beautiful sword. His spear, inlaid with gold,<br />
had a shaft so thick it filled his hand. The king put him in the front line, to stand before<br />
his banner. 15<br />
Spears were also weapons of great prestige in the sagas. The Laxardal saga says that<br />
when Olaf went to Ireland he wore a hauberk and a helmet with golden plates, was girt<br />
with a sword, the hilt of which was inlaid with gold, and in his hand held a spear with a<br />
hooked blade, richly decorated. In the Grettis saga the hero kills two berserks with one<br />
thrust, using “the big hooked spear that belonged to Kar the Old.” 16<br />
While spears had to be light enough to be thrown, warriors of great strength could<br />
nevertheless boast huge weapons. 17 <strong>Warriors</strong> with huge spears, whether long or thick,<br />
could see themselves as Woden’s men, fighting in the style of the spear god, whose<br />
“Gugnir” never failed in its thrust: “Spear-Ygg” (Spear-Woden) was a “kenning” (Old<br />
Norse compound expression) for warriors. 18
Part 4<br />
SHIELD WARRIORS
9<br />
SHIELD CASTLES<br />
They arrayed themselves in shield castles. Closing ranks<br />
everywhere, they were safe in front, in the back, and on the<br />
sides. Thus they broke through our thin line.<br />
Tacitus, Histories<br />
Shield castles in antiquity<br />
Disciplined fighting seems to be as old among Indo-Europeans as are frenzied fighting<br />
and single combat, 1 albeit the weight given to one or the other shifted over time. Homer’s<br />
Iliad speaks of close-knit shield walls and calls close-ordered troops “castles.” Known<br />
also to Celtiberians, Dacians, and Germani, such shieldburg are an inherited Indo-<br />
European battle formation. Called folc or scyldburgh in Anglo-Saxon, fólc in Old Norse,<br />
and cuneus in Latin, they were a mainstay of <strong>Germanic</strong> battle tactics from antiquity to the<br />
Middle Ages. 2<br />
In drawn-out, hand-to-hand fighting against better-equipped Romans, <strong>Germanic</strong><br />
warriors fought against the odds and therefore sought wooded, wet, steep, or stony<br />
ground for battles, or sprang ambushes with tactical retreats and feigned flight. 3 But they<br />
also accepted set-piece battles. When they did, they attacked in well-coordinated shield<br />
castles, not, as some believe, in mindless free-for-alls. Unlike Roman armies, Germani<br />
drew up for battle not in lines but in columns they could quickly turn into well-knit<br />
shieldburg. 4<br />
A good example for this is Ariovistus’ battle array against Caesar in 58 BC. Ariovistus<br />
lined up his seven tribes in groups of columns—each column around 300 strong, says<br />
Dio—with regular intervals between them. After a first lightning attack, which forestalled<br />
the Romans from throwing their pila-spears, the columns formed shield castles<br />
(phalangae), their shields overlapping on all sides and overhead, “as was their wont.”<br />
That the men could do this while fighting proves it to be a wonted custom. 5 As the battle<br />
went on, Caesar’s men overcame the German left flank: Roman soldiers jumped on the<br />
shield buckles of the Germani and struck at them from above. On the right, however, the<br />
Germani pushed forward and almost overwhelmed the Roman lines before Roman<br />
reinforcements came up and the Germani fled. Ariovistus had clearly planned for his<br />
shield castles to break through the Roman lines.<br />
A shield wall is seen in scene 70 of Trajan’s Column (Figure 9.1). 6 The stunning row<br />
of four auxiliaries’ shields, all in one line at the same angle and in full view, draws the<br />
eye on the rhythmic action in the scene. No other battle scene on the Column shows<br />
shields so arrayed. Scholars have rightly taken the scene to depict the advance of a
<strong>Ancient</strong> <strong>Germanic</strong> warriors 92<br />
column into battle. In a companion scene to the right, legionaries form their comparable<br />
“tortoise.”<br />
Three auxiliary soldiers with helmets, mailshirts, and spears (as the men’s fists show)<br />
and an “irregular” club-wielder stand for a body of troops like those brigaded at Placentia<br />
in AD 69 under the name “<strong>Germanic</strong> cohorts”: Batavian auxiliaries next to tribesmen<br />
from across the Rhine. 7 All four warriors have the same shield emblem. Shields aligned<br />
and spears jabbing, they move ahead in bonding step, very likely to the rhythm of the<br />
barritus<br />
Figure 9.1 A shield wall on the attack.<br />
Trajan’s Column, scene 70. Photo:<br />
Deutsches Archäologisches Institut,<br />
Rome, Inst. Neg. 41.1443.<br />
chant—in the same way, it seems, as warriors on the seventh-century Valsgärde foil<br />
and the ninth-century Oseberg wall-hanging (Figures 10.1, 11.5). Behind them comes<br />
another line of spearmen, then bowmen and rock-throwers. Unlike some early medieval<br />
shield castles, this one does not double the shields in the first line, for the foes have no<br />
bowmen. 8<br />
Figure 9.1 actually depicts two shield castles, an attacking <strong>Germanic</strong> one on the left<br />
and a defending Dacian one on the right. As they clash, the two formations reveal their<br />
fighting techniques. When shield castles met, they tried to push the foe out of the way,<br />
which took all the strength and skill the warriors could muster. One way to get a grip on
Shield castles 93<br />
the ground was to hunker down. Speaking of the Alamannic shield castle at the battle of<br />
Strassburg in AD 357, Ammianus says that some very skillful warriors fought on their<br />
knees to turn back the foe. 9 Such a warrior is the Dacian shown in scene 70, kneeling in<br />
the first line of the crumbling shield castle. The shield of another Dacian guards him from<br />
above, just as Maurice describes the shield-castle order in the sixth century. Fighting on<br />
one’s knee in the first line, while guarded by the shield of the man behind, is a very<br />
specific technique. Since both Trajan’s Column and Ammianus know this fighting<br />
technique, the shield castle with the twin line of shields in front must have been a welltrained<br />
traditional battle formation in much of Iron Age Europe.<br />
Arraying troops by tribes was an Indo-European custom that allowed warriors to fight<br />
in their specific styles. The columns and shieldburg of tribes or clans with their own warcries<br />
and dances will have moved to different chants. 10 Hence when Batavi and tribal<br />
warriors from across the Rhine faced the Romans in AD 70, Civilis, like Ariovistus<br />
before him, arrayed his forces by tribes and columns. This was a good tactic also in that<br />
tribes thus set apart strove to outdo each other. 11<br />
The line along which the columns were drawn was “the battle line.” Tacitus refers to it<br />
when he says that the 100 foot warriors honored to fight jointiy with the horse took their<br />
stand “before the battle line.” He also refers to it when he states that leaders showed their<br />
mettle by fighting “before the line.” 12<br />
With the battle line drawn, there was still scope for loosely structured groups<br />
(catervae, globi, drungi) to stay in front or rush out to skirmish, taunt, tempt, probe, or<br />
wreck the enemy’s battle order and hide their own. 13 Such tactics favored lighter, faster<br />
Germani over more heavily equipped Romans. 14 In AD 354 Constantius II overcame the<br />
Alamanni when three of his <strong>Germanic</strong> officers, Arintheus, Seniauchus, and Bappo, with<br />
their troops, rushed the enemy “in wild lunges rather than in proper battle order.” 15 What<br />
mattered was their eagerness to fight, their reckless dash into the fray. 16 In such lunges,<br />
wolf- and bear-warriors, naked berserks, and others could display their daring fighting<br />
styles. And since even kings fought at times in such groups, 17 the picture of Trajan at the<br />
head of naked “berserk” swordsmen, helm-bearers, wolf- and bear-warriors in scene 36<br />
of the Column may be meant to suggest that the emperor—symbolically—led elite<br />
warrior groups to fight before the battle line.<br />
Attacking shield castles could overcome even well-ordered Roman foot. 18 They might<br />
advance straight, chanting the barritus, as did the Cornuti and Brachiati at Strassburg in<br />
AD 357, move as squares, guarding themselves on all sides, 19 or advance in the famous<br />
“boarhead” wedge formation. 20 With a narrow front formed at the battle line, the<br />
“boarhead” moved forward to break the enemy line. It had a good chance of doing so, for<br />
at the front stood the keenest warriors, including kings ringed by bodyguards and<br />
champions. 21 Moreover, as the sides of the wedge guarded the churls in the middle, these<br />
were free to hurl weapons at the breaking point in the enemy line—the same point-of-fire<br />
tactics as the circling attacks of horse described on pp. 146–8. 22<br />
Shield castles might also attack walls. Tacitus says of troops attacking Placentia in AD<br />
69 that they swung shields over their heads and were bare-chested. Ammianus describes<br />
the same equipment and technique at the siege of Aquileia in AD 361: “They held their<br />
shields over their heads so they could fight more lightly [clad].” 23 Batavi formed shield<br />
castles several stories high to attack city walls. “They stormed against the wall, most of<br />
them placing ladders at it, others over their shield castles.” 24 A shield castle needed a roof
<strong>Ancient</strong> <strong>Germanic</strong> warriors 94<br />
of shields over it to guard against missiles, 25 but holding up a shield for others to clamber<br />
over takes great strength. Shield castle warriors could do this because neither those who<br />
held up the shields nor those who ran over them were burdened by armor. To storm walls<br />
bare-chested, however, took berserk-like recklessness, and losses were high. 26<br />
The first two lines of shieldburg were obvious places for long-spear wielders,<br />
helmeted athelings, and startling-to-look-at long-hairs. 27 Scene 70 of Trajan’s Column<br />
shows a club-wielder fighting in the first line (Figure 9.1). Other elite warriors may also<br />
have fought in the front lines of shield castles, in some cases as a leader’s guard with<br />
large shields, ready to form a boarhead wedge. 28 Though dart- and stone-throwers stood<br />
further back, shield castles nevertheless brought athelings and churls together, as they<br />
depended upon each other.<br />
Shield castles mattered to <strong>Germanic</strong> tactics because most men lacked armor. 29 The<br />
shield’s role in the castle formation shows why those who threw their shields away<br />
earned a bad name: unable to safeguard themselves and those around them, they<br />
endangered all. 30<br />
Attack by column did not, as is often said, put all hope of victory on the first charge,<br />
for attacks succeeded each other. Libanius says the Franks attacked with a second force<br />
even before their first “phalanx” had been beaten back. 31 The pivotal role of the battle<br />
column and its shield castle, moreover, shows that <strong>Germanic</strong> warfare stood squarely in a<br />
northern Iron Age tradition that owed little to the Romans. 32<br />
<strong>Germanic</strong> warfare, then, was not planless or disorderly, as sometimes said. 33 Troops<br />
were often well-trained, well-led, and capable of intricate maneuver: 34 Caesar says of<br />
Ariovistus, “He won by planning and reason.” 35 On the whole, <strong>Germanic</strong> warriors seem<br />
to have fought less fantasticaliy wild than Celts and perhaps therefore fared better in wars<br />
against the Romans. 36 The newly found battle site in the Teutoburg Forest revealed that<br />
long-range planning and tactical skill brought a Roman field army of 30,000 men to a<br />
spot at which field fortifications goaded them into a deadly trap. 37 Anthropological<br />
studies of warfare point out the vital role of social and tactical organization, 38 which<br />
makes it likely that <strong>Germanic</strong> victories over Rome were won through the tactical<br />
efficiency of shield castles.<br />
Shield castles in the early Middle Ages<br />
In AD 535, Cassiodorus mentions a Gothic woman named Ranilda, “She of the<br />
Boarhead-Battle.” It is the oldest known mention of the boarhead battle formation. As<br />
names expressed warrior ideals, “Ranilda” is proof that sixth-century Goths in Italy held<br />
the boarhead formation in high regard. 39 That <strong>Germanic</strong> troops at the time still used the<br />
shieldburg formation is seen also from the fact that the Byzantines adopted it and called it<br />
by its <strong>Germanic</strong> name “fulkon” (folc). Around AD 600, Maurice describes a defensive<br />
shield-burg castle this way:<br />
The first, second and third men in each file form a fulkon, that is one<br />
shield over the other, and pointing their spears forward outside the shields,<br />
they press them firmly against the ground so that those who dare coming<br />
too close will feel them. With the shoulders they push and lean against the
Shield castles 95<br />
shields so they can well withstand the pressure of those outside. But the<br />
third man stands higher… 40<br />
The men leaning their shoulders against the shields call to mind scene 70 of Trajan’s<br />
Column (Figure 9.1) and Ammianus’ description of warriors fighting on their knees in<br />
the first line of a defensive shield castle. 41 In another passage Maurice describes a shield<br />
castle as it moves forward:<br />
On the command ad fulcum those in front move their shields closer until<br />
they nearly touch the shield bosses of their neighbors, guarding<br />
themselves well from stomach to shins. Those behind them lift their<br />
shields over and rest them on the shield bosses of those before them,<br />
guarding their chest and face. And thus they move to the attack. 42<br />
This is the most detailed description we have of shield castles. When Maurice says that<br />
the “blond” peoples (Franks, Lombards) go to battle in dense and even lines, 43 he means<br />
not continuous lines but those made up of columns standing beside each other at intervals<br />
like Ariovistus’ troops and ready to form shield castles. 44<br />
Whether on offense or defense, the shieldburg, with shields locked in front and<br />
overhead, guarded men against flying spears and arrows. In the thirteenth century Saxo<br />
twice tells of shield castles standing under a hail of spears until their foes ran out of<br />
weapons and could be safely counterattacked. 45<br />
In stating that men of the second line rest their shields on the shield bosses of those in<br />
the first line, Maurice reveals why some <strong>Germanic</strong> shield bosses had a protruding staff<br />
(“Stangenschildbuckel”). Such bosses were less for parrying blows, as has been<br />
suggested, than for shields to be locked into a shield castle: the neck of the buckle held<br />
the neighboring shield, the staff the one from above. Only men in the front line, perhaps<br />
only those at the narrow boar’s head, needed staff bosses, hence very few of them have<br />
been found from any given period. As their owners were front-rank fighters and leaders,<br />
these often richly silvered and engraved bosses no doubt also served as status symbols.<br />
Fittingly, Emperor Lothair himself, in his gospel book of AD 849–851, has a shield with<br />
a knobbed staff-boss. 46<br />
From the find distribution of staff bosses one may then infer when and where Germani<br />
used shield castles. Staff bosses from graves of the pre-Roman Iron Age prove Caesar<br />
right about Ariovistus’ shield castles in 58 BC, while Emperor Lothair’s boss shows the<br />
double-row shield castle still in use among ninth-century Franks. Similarly, bosses from<br />
Sweden and what is now Poland make it clear that double-row shield castle tactics<br />
prevailed among northern and eastern as well as western Germani, and that all <strong>Germanic</strong><br />
regions shared this telling feature of warcraft. 47<br />
The un-Roman shape of <strong>Germanic</strong> shield-bosses and the <strong>Germanic</strong> name (fulkon) of<br />
the Byzantine shield castle show that Byzantium learned the shield castle and its more<br />
specific form, the boarhead formation, from <strong>Germanic</strong> warriors. This makes sense, for by<br />
the end of the third century AD legionaries looked much like <strong>Germanic</strong> tribesmen,<br />
lacking helmets and armor but equipped with oblong or round shields. These “Romans,”<br />
as vulnerable as <strong>Germanic</strong> troops, needed shield castles to guard them against spears and<br />
arrows. 48
<strong>Ancient</strong> <strong>Germanic</strong> warriors 96<br />
<strong>Heathen</strong> <strong>Germanic</strong> lands knew the barritus chant (described on pp. 111–3) from the<br />
first century to the tenth century AD. The chant gave the shield castle its beat and hence<br />
its coherence. Covered as they were by other warriors’ shields, front rankers could see<br />
very little and their advance would have fallen into disorder without a strong beat to<br />
march by. The Old High German name of Folcleih, “He of the Shield-Castle Dance,” also<br />
suggests that the shield castle marched in step, or “danced.” 49 Shield-castle discipline did<br />
not bar warrior ecstasy. The barritus sounded like waves crashing on cliffs and thus like<br />
wild forces of nature close to that oldest and best-liked image of battle, a storm. Woden’s<br />
battle is still seen as a storm in the tenth-century skaldic poem by Eyvind Skaldaspillir. 50<br />
<strong>Warriors</strong> believed that Woden had taught them the shield-castle formation, and like the<br />
god himself the shield castle embodied both well-ordered discipline and ecstatic<br />
“storm.” 51<br />
Known from antiquity to the Middle Ages, 52 shield castles typify the continuity in<br />
<strong>Germanic</strong> warcraft. 53 Edda and Icelandic sagas both speak of shield castles, and so does<br />
the Norwegian Hákonarmál in AD 961. 54 Anglo-Saxons warriors at Maldon in AD 991<br />
still used the shield castle and learned how to hold their shields to form the wihaga or<br />
scyldburgh. The Bayeux tapestry shows an Anglo-Saxon shield castle at Hastings in<br />
1066: formed of only one row of shields, it allowed Norman bowmen to shoot Harold’s<br />
housekarls. 55 Nevertheless, the Anglo-Saxon shield castle served well both on the defense<br />
and on the attack. Anglo-Normans still used it in the crusades and beyond. 56 In<br />
Scandinavia the shield castle also survived into the second millennium, and with it the<br />
technique of the strongest to sally forth from it to try and break the enemy line. Of the<br />
battle at Stiklastad in AD 1030, Snorri Sturlusson says:<br />
Then the lines before the banner of the king grew thin. So the king bade<br />
Thór to advance the standard and followed it with the body of the men he<br />
had selected to be about him in battle. These were the boldest with<br />
weapons and the best armed among his troops. 57<br />
The same battle order suited <strong>Germanic</strong> armies of the first century AD as well.
10<br />
CHANTING<br />
They raised the barritus as loud as could be, a shout<br />
(clamor) that in the heat of battle slowly grows from a<br />
faint whisper into a sound like waves crashing against<br />
cliffs.<br />
Ammianus Marcellinus<br />
Singing<br />
In battle, fear can grip men so hard that they freeze even as they turn to flee. Singing,<br />
shouting, and dancing, however, may ban or dull such fear. <strong>Warriors</strong> the world over have<br />
therefore sung, shouted, and danced to heighten their prowess and drown their fear. Indo-<br />
Europeans believed their gods and heroes had taught them this. 1 Plato held that soft songs<br />
made soft warriors; the late-Roman historian Ammianus Marcellinus agreed and urged<br />
warriors to shout lustily. 2<br />
<strong>Ancient</strong> warriors had narrative songs to sing before battle and chanting songs to shout<br />
once fighting began. Roman legionaries, trapped in swamps between Ems and the Rhine<br />
in AD 15, set these two off from each other when they heard their foes “cram hill and<br />
dale with glad song or grim battle cry.” 3<br />
As for narrative songs, Spartans sang of their ancestor Hercules as they marched<br />
against the enemy. Tacitus likewise says of first-century Germani that before fighting<br />
they sang of Hercules, the “first of heroes.” Germani on the Rhine sang of their hero<br />
Arminius. 4 In the Battle at the Willows in AD 377, Gothic warriors too sang of ancestral<br />
heroes, “braying,” Ammianus Marcellinus scoffs, “in grating voices the praise of their<br />
forebears.” Emperor Julian, who often heard <strong>Germanic</strong> warriors sing, thought they had<br />
great fun singing loudly. Late Roman and Byzantine armies adopted this custom—<br />
witness the rank of cantator, “singer.” Since Roman troops of the early and High Empire<br />
had no such singers, Germani serving in late imperial armies likely brought the custom<br />
with them. 5<br />
The custom still lived in the ninth century: the Old High German Ludwigslied of AD<br />
881 says that when Franks and Vikings met, “Song was sung, battle begun.” On the<br />
morning of the battle at Stiklastad in AD 1030, Thormod, skald of King Olaf of Norway,<br />
sang for the king’s army the Old Lay of Bjarki. Before the battle at Hastings in AD 1066,<br />
Normans sang the song of Roland. 6<br />
Songs of heroes and forebears turned battles into mythic struggles and warriors into<br />
mythic heroes. Singing such songs, men felt themselves heroes like Hercules, Sigmund,<br />
Siegfried, or Beowulf; or they felt themselves warriors of Thor, Woden, or Balder, whom<br />
they believed to be their fore-bears. It was a way of overcoming human bounds, as was<br />
fighting in animal-warrior or berserk fighting styles. 7
<strong>Ancient</strong> <strong>Germanic</strong> warriors 98<br />
Barritus chanting<br />
Chanting songs served as battle cry and beat for war dances. Early Greek and Roman<br />
warriors “shouted like flocks of raucous birds”; indeed, the aim of the Greek paian battle<br />
chant was to evoke the image of a wild animal. 8 Husky songs likewise heartened<br />
Thracian and Iberian warriors, and chanting Gauls and Britons frightened their foes at the<br />
onset of battle. 9 Of <strong>Germanic</strong> war songs Tacitus says:<br />
They also have songs (carmina) whose singing, which they call barditus,<br />
stirs them up—they even foretell the outcome of battles from the singing<br />
itself, for they frighten, or get frightened, by how their battle line sounds,<br />
taking this to reflect not their voices but their manhood. Aiming above all<br />
at a rough, fitful note, they raise their shields to the mouth so that the<br />
sound, being reflected, gets fuller and heavier. 10<br />
Romans too believed that when armies met, the strength of their respective war cries<br />
foreshadowed the outcome of battle: a weak war cry betrayed fear, a strong one showed<br />
strength and eagerness. To <strong>Germanic</strong> warriors this mattered even more, for they believed<br />
the strength of their war cry foretold victory or defeat. They thus put their utmost into<br />
shouting: in the campaign against Ariovistus, Caesar warned his soldiers not to be afraid<br />
of <strong>Germanic</strong> shouting, and so did Emperor Decius in AD 250. At the battle of Strassburg<br />
in AD 357, the <strong>Germanic</strong> war cry was truly awesome, says Ammianus. The Auxilia<br />
Palatina units of Cornuti and Brachiati (<strong>Germanic</strong> units on the Roman side), he says,<br />
“raised the barritus as loud as could be, a shout (clamor) that in the heat of battle slowly<br />
grows from a faint whisper into a sound like waves crashing against cliffs.” 11 By the time<br />
of the battle at the Willows in AD 377, the Roman field army had learned the barritus<br />
(the later form of the word barditus) from the Auxilia Palatina, and by shouting it “gained<br />
great strength.” In the ninth century AD the war cry of northern warriors still sounded<br />
like crashing waves, 12 the howling or snarling of wolves, or the howling of a storm. 13<br />
Bronze foils from the helmet found in grave 7 at Valsgärde in Sweden depict midseventh<br />
century warriors in raven-helmets marching in step next to rearing snake dragons<br />
that belong to the weapons dance. In the shape of an eagle, Woden goes before (Figure<br />
10.1). 14<br />
Holding their shields as high as their mouths, the warriors shout the battle cry as<br />
Tacitus describes in his Germania. Since the foils prove Tacitus right about raising the<br />
shields, one may also believe his explanation that the warriors did this to make the sound<br />
of the battle cry reverberate toward themselves and feel their own strength. 15 Another<br />
warrior raising the shield, very likely to chant the barritus, is the Oseberg boar-warrior<br />
shown in Figure 4.3.<br />
The Hávamál, quoted below, says that Woden raised the battle cry. The two warriors<br />
in Figure 10.1 thus give Woden’s cry. Imitating the god, they act out an opening-of-battle<br />
ritual in which eagles and snakes play roles. It is fitting, therefore, that they wear birdheaded<br />
dragons on their helmets, as Woden does in rituals at the onset of war (Figures<br />
11.1–11.3). 16
Figure 10.1 <strong>Warriors</strong> chanting the<br />
barritus, raising their shields. Bronze<br />
foil from the helmet in grave 7 at<br />
Valsgärde, Uppland. Drawing after<br />
Hauck, “Germania-Texte” 1982, 206ff.<br />
Tacitus’ description of the barditus and its foretelling the outcome of battle are borne<br />
out by a verse of the Hávamál in the Edda:<br />
þhat kann ec ellipta: ef ec scal til orrosto<br />
leiða langvini: undir randir ec gel, enn<br />
með ríki fara heilir hildar til, heilir hildi fra,<br />
koma heilr hvaðan.<br />
Chanting 99<br />
That, eleventh, I know: When I shall to battle lead<br />
old friends under shields I yell and they fare with<br />
might hale to the fight, hale from the fight, they<br />
come hale from wherever.<br />
The poem, heathen and hence from no later than the tenth century, has Woden stand by<br />
his friends as they sing and march into battle—a belief reflected in the eagle hovering
<strong>Ancient</strong> <strong>Germanic</strong> warriors 100<br />
before the men on the Valsgarde foil (Figure 10.1). What is more, by yelling “under<br />
shields” Woden strengthens the war cry of his friends, thus making them win. Tenthcentury<br />
warriors, like those of Tacitus in the first century, thus held that a strong battle<br />
cry foretells victory. The Hávamál then shows how much the barritus mattered to<br />
warriors, and how right Tacitus was, 800 years earlier, to stress this fact. 17
11<br />
WAR DANCES<br />
Fiercely shouting and bare-chested as was their wont, they<br />
bran-dished their shields over their shoulders.<br />
Tacitus, Histories<br />
Indo-European war dances<br />
Dance, like song and shout, gives warriors strength to outdo themselves. Unflagging<br />
dance rids the mind of wandering thoughts, thus bringing on ecstasy, the divine state of<br />
mind. To achieve this, wild warriors the world over danced before, during, and after<br />
battle. Dancing was so rnuch a part of fighting among Polynesians of Mangaia that they<br />
had a Valhalla of war dancers: “Men killed in battle went to a special warriors’ paradise<br />
where they danced with their old friends and enemies. All others had to face the ‘ovens of<br />
Miru in the lower Avaiki’.” 1<br />
Indo-European warriors, seeking ecstacy, danced to banish fear and flaunt strength:<br />
Tukulti-Ninurta’s berserks danced on the battlefield, as did Vedic Indians, Iranians, and<br />
Homeric Greeks. 2 To Hector battle itself was dance: He “knew how to swing his shield<br />
left and right,” very likely in a battle line of dancers. Archaic Greeks believed the<br />
Dioscuri had invented weapon dancing; Spartans danced when they closed in on a foe. 3<br />
Plato thought the man who sang and danced rightly overcame his enemy in battle,<br />
echoing the proven soldier Socrates who in prison wrote, “Those who honor the gods best<br />
with dances are the best in war, which reflects Attic hoplite training.” 4<br />
<strong>Ancient</strong> Thracians war-danced to sounds of flutes, leaping into the air and clashing<br />
swords as if striking each other. They did so on occasion to celebrate peace, but mainly to<br />
excite themselves before battle. Gallaecian warriors in northwest Spain “stomped the<br />
ground first with one, then with the other foot, clashing their shields to the beat.” 5 Alpine<br />
and Celtiberic tribesmen, each in their own way, danced before battle and to honor their<br />
dead at funerals. 6 Wearing nothing but golden neckbands and armrings, Celtic warriors<br />
danced on the battlefield. 7 Even Romans, little known for dancing, danced at times with<br />
weapons in hand. They did so early in the first millennium BC as warriors, and still in<br />
historical times as Salian priests to worship the gods as Hector and Arcadians had done. 8<br />
Toward the end of the first millennium AD, Slavs did splendid victory dances. 9<br />
The barritus dance<br />
<strong>Germanic</strong> warriors danced to honor the dead, to celebrate victory, to hail a speech, to<br />
gloat over a captured banner, and to begin a battle. 10 In 174 BC King Perseus of<br />
Macedonia hoped the <strong>Germanic</strong> Bastarnae in his service would frighten the Romans with
<strong>Ancient</strong> <strong>Germanic</strong> warriors 102<br />
their war dance. 11 At Aquae Sextiae in 106 BC, Ambrone warriors advanced in step,<br />
rhythmically clashing their weapons and shouting their tribal name. 12 Chanting, dancing,<br />
and brandishing weapons is found together time and again.<br />
In AD 26, Rome’s <strong>Germanic</strong> cohort I Claudia Sugambrorum Veterana won fame for<br />
the uproar of its songs and weapons—cantuum et armorum tumultus—as it fought<br />
Thracians. Raised on the Rhine some thirty-five years earlier, the Sugambri cohort must<br />
have kept its traditional fighting style. 13 They must have struck their weapons against<br />
each other, as Ambrones did at Aquae Sextiae, or swung their shields in tight formation<br />
as we know of later <strong>Germanic</strong> troops from the Rhine.<br />
The Roman commander sent the Sugambri cohort to frighten off tribal Thracians, who<br />
were themselves singing and dancing in battle line. It must have been quite a show to<br />
Roman eyes to see the old warrior styles outshouting and outdancing each other, as they<br />
were meant to do, and as men are likely to have done ever since warfare began. 14<br />
During the civil war of AD 69, “<strong>Germanic</strong> cohorts”—Batavi and men from East of the<br />
Rhine—attacked the Italian town of Placentia. They sang fiercely, Tacitus says of them,<br />
and “bare-chested, as was their wont, brandished shields over their shoulders.” 15 The<br />
warriors no doubt swung their shields and stepped to the rhythm of the barritus. The<br />
Batavi were keen war dancers, for under Civilis in AD 70 they danced again before the<br />
battle at Vetera. The name of the Batavian war goddess Vagdavercustis may mean<br />
“protectress of war dancers.” 16<br />
Scene 70 of Trajan’s Column shows <strong>Germanic</strong> troops advancing in step, very likely to<br />
the rhythm of a chant (Figure 9.1). <strong>Germanic</strong> troops chanting the barritus and swinging<br />
their shields are known also from late antiquity, though their dance has been overlooked.<br />
In AD 357 at the battle at Strassburg, Cornuti and Brachiati shouted the barritus war cry<br />
like “waves crashing against cliffs,” making it resound from shields lifted up to the<br />
mouth. At the same time they frightened their foes by the way they moved: eos iam gestu<br />
terrentes. Some have translated the word gestus as if it meant “they frightened their foes<br />
by their bearing”; yet it can also mean “gesture” or “dance.” The latter is likely here:<br />
Cornuti and Brachiati danced. 17 From an event in AD 374 we learn more of this gesture:<br />
beaten and outnumbered by the enemy, a Roman expeditionary force in Africa under<br />
Count Theodosius overawed its foes and saved itself when its soldiers closed ranks and<br />
moved their shields in a frightening gestus. 18 The gestus at Strassburg, then, was also a<br />
movement of shields: the Cornuti and Batavi must have brandished them in a frightening<br />
way, all at the same time, no doubt to the rhythm of the barritus while lined up in shield<br />
castle formation. 19 Similarly at Adrianople in AD 378, “Roman” troops frightened Goths<br />
with their “threatening shoving of shields.” 20 To be threatening, the shoving of shields<br />
had to be brusk and rhythmic, only then could it cast fear into foes.<br />
Singing leads to swaying and rocking. The rhythm of <strong>Germanic</strong> speech may have<br />
encouraged that, for in the words of Northrop Frye “The pounding movement and<br />
clashing noise which the heavy accentuation of English makes possible” brings about a<br />
“hypnotic incantation that, through its pulsing dance rhythm, appeals to involuntary<br />
physical resonance and is hence not far from the sense of magic or physically compelling<br />
power.” 21<br />
When in the fourth century the Auxilia Palatina of Cornuti and Brachiati were<br />
foremost in battlefield prowess, the Roman field army adopted their barritus—not just<br />
the shout, it seems, but the dance step as well. Emperors like Constantius II and Julian
War dances 103<br />
learned to advance in a war-dance step that Ammianus calls with an old-fashioned Greek<br />
term pyrrica. Since one never hears of legions war-dancing during the early and High<br />
Empire, Ammianus’ pyrrica is likely to be a newly adopted, foreign custom—the war<br />
dance of Cornuti and Brachiati. 22<br />
Can one reconstruct the barritus dance? In AD 363 at Ctesiphon, Julian marched his<br />
men toward enemy lines to the sound of fifes in the anapaest beat: short-short-long. The<br />
anapaest, earlier used by Spartans, may have been a common Indo-European war-dance<br />
beat, the “three-foot step” (tripudium) known from many nations. In Julian’s army, it was<br />
the rhythm of barritus and shield-swinging. 23 <strong>Warriors</strong> chanting the barritus may have<br />
danced in this three-beat rhythm, taking one step each on the first two beats, then<br />
swinging foot and shield on the long third beat with a shout.<br />
The barritus dance was nothing without the rhythmic shout. Ammianus chides<br />
Sabinianus, leader of the Roman forces in the Mesopotamian campaign of AD 359, who,<br />
to amuse himself, bade the band strike up the war-dance tune for theatrical gestures “in<br />
deep silence”—apparently without the soldiers’ shout. 24<br />
The shield-castle dance was, of course, an attack step. On the long third beat of the<br />
tripudium, warriors could, instead of swinging foot and shield, jump onto their foe’s<br />
shield buckle, striking him from above, as we have seen in the chapter on shield castles.<br />
This is what Vegetius advises in the fourth century AD: “while doing the war dance<br />
climb onto the [enemy’s] shield and come down again, and now, doing the gestus<br />
[swinging the shield?], jump forward and fall back.” In the battle of Adrianople (AD 376)<br />
the Goths fought in this way. 25<br />
What with the willfulness of warriors and the heroic quest of self-seeking leaders,<br />
war-dancing brought much-needed discipline to <strong>Germanic</strong> battle lines. 26 This may be<br />
why the Auxilia Palatina, famed for their barritus, became Rome’s finest and best-known<br />
troops. It is nevertheless astounding that after centuries of “rational” warfare, the Roman<br />
army returned to war-dancing, a custom befitting tribal warriors rather than imperial<br />
soldiers.<br />
The barritus lived on into the Middle Ages (Figure 10.1). 27 Referring to legendary<br />
times, Saxo Grammaticus says the Saxon army brought its champion Hama to the<br />
battlefield “with the weapon dance of military pomp.” From the “songs and clash of<br />
arms” of the fierce Sugambrian cohort at the beginning of our era to the early Middle<br />
Ages, the war dance breathed life into shield-castle battle lines. It even allowed foot to<br />
attack and defeat horse in the open field, as Swiss pikemen did at the other end of the<br />
Middle Ages when, marching in step to fife and drum, they became the first foot warriors<br />
in a long time to march upon and overcome armored knights. 28<br />
Woden’s dance<br />
A rock drawing from Tanum, Bohuslän, shows a spear dancer, perhaps from the Bronze<br />
Age (Figure 11.1). 29<br />
Most Bohuslän rock drawings lack a ground line, which makes the figures seem to<br />
float. This warrior, however, looks as if he jumped into the air, for his toes point<br />
downward and he has his legs together, not spread as one does when throwing a spear<br />
while standing on the ground. With the dancing Woden on the Torslunda die (Figure 1.6)
<strong>Ancient</strong> <strong>Germanic</strong> warriors 104<br />
he shares the heavy spear, the sword girt to his hip, the dance step, and, it seems, even the<br />
twin-dragon headgear. 30 He thus may be a forerunner of Woden the spear dancer. 31<br />
<strong>Germanic</strong> weapon dancers could stir a crowd, as Tacitus notes:<br />
As a public show at every gathering, naked youths whose sport this is<br />
fling themselves about in a dance between swords and threatening spears.<br />
Training has produced skill, and skill grace, but they do it not for gain or<br />
any payment: however daring their abandon, the onlookers’ delight is<br />
their only reward. 32<br />
Tacitus calls this dance a spectaculum, a show to delight onlookers, and this it may well<br />
have been. 33 Before battle, though, its role was likely to rouse men to fight. As few<br />
<strong>Germanic</strong> warriors owned swords, 34 the spear-and-sword dancers would have belonged to<br />
the high-born who led men into battle.<br />
The earliest known images unmistakably made by Germani are the sword dancers<br />
from Himlingøje in East Sealand, Denmark. Embossed on gilt silver foils that overlay a<br />
pair of third-century cups, naked dancers leap with drawn swords and animals bound<br />
about in scenes full of life and ecstasy.<br />
Figure 11.1 Spear dancer. Rock<br />
drawing from Tanum, Bohuslän. Photo<br />
after Altheim, Literatur 1948, plate<br />
XX (with permission of Max<br />
Niemeyer Verlag).
War dances 105<br />
Remarkably, the dancers wear a cap-like headgear like that of Woden or Balder on the<br />
Års medallion (Figure 11.2). Silver and gold mark these cups as belonging to princes, and<br />
as the cups were made locally by order of the rulers, the sword dance seems to have been<br />
a high point of life for East Sealand princes, something they wanted to call to mind when<br />
drinking in style—and no wonder, for Tacitus says the weapon dance was the Germani’s<br />
main voluptas. 35<br />
In the early Middle Ages too the war god is shown doing the spear-and-sword dance.<br />
A fifth-century bracteate amulet from Års in Denmark depicts Woden or Balder as a<br />
naked dancer (Figure 11.2). 36<br />
Like the Finglesham dancer (Figure 11.3), the Års dancer wears a strange headgear,<br />
and like all naked weapon dancers, a belt. Wearing also a neckband and sprouting a tail,<br />
he twirls more weapons than an ordinary man<br />
Figure 11.2 War god, dancing.<br />
Bracteate medallion from Års,<br />
Denmark. IK 7. Dansk<br />
Nationalmuseet, inv. no. 14/14;<br />
Museum photograph by Jesper Weng.
<strong>Ancient</strong> <strong>Germanic</strong> warriors 106<br />
could hold: a shield, an ax, a spear, and a club, all at the same time. 37 He touches his chin<br />
with the thumb of his right hand, a power-gesture that dancing Balder and Woden also<br />
make on other bracteate amulets. 38<br />
The bent shape of the god’s club on the amulet does not make it a boomerang, as has<br />
been said. Boomerangs are quite unlike such a heavy, knotted club that could never return<br />
to a thrower’s hand. 39 Nor does the bent spear betoken self-sacrifice as has also been<br />
suggested. 40 Club, spear, and ax are bent for another reason—to show how sharply the<br />
god shakes them as he dances. 41 Spears are often shown bent when about to be thrown, 42<br />
and though they are nowhere bent as much as on the Års amulet, the idea is the same. His<br />
bent spear shows the god dancing in ecstasy. 43<br />
The huge “crest” on the god’s headgear has led scholars to take the figure on the Års<br />
amulet to be Mars. The cap with its long “nose guard,” however, is altogether nonclassical<br />
and as little related to the Roman Mars as are the tail, the ax, and the club of the<br />
dancing god. 44 The god, then, is not Mars, but a <strong>Germanic</strong> war god. Like the headgear of<br />
the Torslunda and Finglesham dancers (Figures 1.6, 11.3), that of the Års dancer reaches<br />
far down over fore-head and nose, to secure a good hold. The “crest,” far too long for a<br />
helmet plume, is a dragon. 43 Its length matches that of a dragon on a dancer’s cap<br />
depicted on a metal foil from Windisch in Switzerland. 46 Close parallels are found in<br />
other shapes of Woden’s headgear on bracteate amulets, at times ending in bird (-dragon)<br />
heads. Bird-dragon headgear, as we will see, fits well with Woden’s role as a weapon<br />
dancer. 47<br />
The bent-up tip of the god’s tail on the Års medallion may mark a wolf tail. On the<br />
Torslunda die (Figure 1.6) and on the Oseberg wall-hanging (Figure 11.5), Woden dances<br />
before champion wolf-warriors. On a bracteate amulet from Gudbrandsdalen, Norway he<br />
bears a wolf on his helmet. The tail on the Års medallion thus may well mark the god’s<br />
bond with wolf-warriors, for wolf hoods of early medieval warriors do show such tails<br />
(Figures 1.3, 1.6). 48<br />
Like the Torslunda die (Figure 1.6), so several figurines found in Sweden and the<br />
Oseberg wall-hanging (Figure 11.5) suggest that Woden war-danced to spur men to<br />
battle, to give them the reckless fighting mood that comes from ecstatic dancing. Adam<br />
von Bremen calls this mood furor, warriors themselves called it manhood. 49 Woden’s<br />
way was to help his men indirectly rather than by fighting alongside: he heartened them<br />
by the war dance and made them wound-proof, while striking foes with fear and<br />
blindness, and blunting their weapons. 50<br />
The spear-and-sword dance described by Tacitus appears again on a sixth-century<br />
Anglo-Saxon belt buckle from Finglesham in Kent (Figure 11.3). 51 Like the dancer on the<br />
Års bracteate amulet, the Finglesham dancer is naked, wearing only a dragon headpiece<br />
and a “power belt.” 52 His bent feet show him dancing. Naked between spears, he recalls<br />
Tacitus’ skilled weapon dancers. Lack of sword, club, and shield, while no doubt due to<br />
abbreviation, allows the god to step lightly as he twirls his “threatening spears.” Also due<br />
to abbreviation is the lack of such flaps (snake-dragon tails or tresses) at the side of the<br />
headgear as are seen on the Torslunda die (Figure 1.6) and the Sutton Hoo foils.<br />
Like the dancer on the Års medallion, the one on the Finglesham belt buckle has no<br />
sword, while other evidence, from Tacitus to the tenth-century Björkö statuette, shows<br />
such dancers holding swords as well as spears. Though due to abbreviation, the lack of a<br />
sword on the Års medallion and the Finglesham buckle might suggest that in this dance
War dances 107<br />
spears matter more than swords, which may be reflected also in the name Gisalec, “Spear<br />
Dancer” (not to mention Shakespeare). 53 On the other hand, the second-century<br />
Himlingøje cup dancers hold only a sword in what seems to be the same dance.<br />
On the Torslunda die (Figure 1.6) the dancer with the twin-dragon head-gear is clearly<br />
Woden, for he has only one eye. 54 A ninth-century statuette from Uppåkra, near Lund,<br />
Sweden, likewise depicts a one-eyed Woden in<br />
Figure 11.3 Weapon dancer. Gilt belt<br />
buckle from Finglesham, Kent. Photo:<br />
Institute of Archaeology, Oxford.<br />
twin-dragon headgear. 55 Other leaders might also wear this headgear, as does the lone<br />
weapon dancer who performs before Woden on a bracteate amulet found at Kitnæs,<br />
Denmark. Hence the Finglesham dancer, who is not one-eyed, may be Woden, Balder,<br />
one of the Dioscuri, or an unknown battle lord. 56 To the high-ranking warrior who owned
<strong>Ancient</strong> <strong>Germanic</strong> warriors 108<br />
the Finglesham belt buckle, the war dance mattered very much, since he displayed it so<br />
eye-catchingly.<br />
Fifth-century Franks also worshiped Woden (or Balder) as their war-dance leader. The<br />
famous tile from Grésin, in the heart of France, portrays Jesus Christ as a weapon<br />
dancer. 57 Juggling spear and shield, this Christ, like Balder on bracteate amulets, has a<br />
sword swoshing through the air. 58 As with the dancers depicted on the Års bracteate<br />
amulet and the Finglesham belt buckle, his penis shows—a stunning assimilation to the<br />
war-dance god. Since Christ could hardly stand in for a lesser god, the tile is evidence for<br />
Woden (or Balder) worship among the Franks who conquered Gaul. Most important, it<br />
illustrates the central role of the war dance among Frankish warriors at the time.<br />
That a dancer in twin-dragon headgear need not be Woden is clear also from metal<br />
foils on Vendel helmets in Sweden and England that portray two such dancers in one<br />
scene. 59 Because there are two dancers, they cannot be Woden. However, they may be the<br />
divine twins, his sons, the Dioscuri, who according to Greeks and Vedic Indians invented<br />
and performed the war song and the war dance. 60 Perhaps the <strong>Germanic</strong> image of the two<br />
dancers derived from Roman reliefs of the Dioscuri, 61 which would be fitting, as the latter<br />
portray the same subject: Indo-European cognate twins of warrior mythology.<br />
A silver foil from Caenby, Licolnshire with a similar dancer shows the “flaps” to the<br />
side of the twin-dragon headgear shaped even more like snake tails than those of the<br />
Torslunda die (Figure 1,6). Very likely they are the tails of the snake-dragons on the<br />
headgear. 62 A tool-hilt from Dover with a similar dancer adds an important detail: the<br />
twin-dragon headgear is fastened to the dancer’s head with several straps, hence with the<br />
care one would expect for a precariously perched dancing cap or mask. 63<br />
While the Himlingøje, Års, and Finglesham dancers are naked, twin-dragon dancers<br />
on the Sutton Hoo helmet of a slightly later date are dressed. So is the Caenby dancer and<br />
others portrayed by Swedish statuettes down to the tenth century. 64 The change, found in<br />
other early medieval images too, 65 may have to do with the change from tribal to<br />
aristocratic warfare: when hauberks became the usual battle dress, unarmored garb took<br />
the place of nakedness.<br />
Dancers with twin-dragon headgear might also be kings or war-leaders. A poem by the<br />
twelfth-century skald Einar Skulason speaks of “the dragon cap a famous king wears<br />
boldly.” Likewise, two dancers wearing dragon head-gear may have been twin brothers in<br />
the role of joint army leaders or kings, well-known among <strong>Germanic</strong> nations. 66 If so, they<br />
both embodied gods to make earthly battles mythical. <strong>Germanic</strong> rulers at high festivals<br />
embodied Woden in the belief that during battle Woden possessed them. 67<br />
Hence dragon dancers may be kings celebrating festivals or rousing followers to<br />
battle. Indeed, the use of dragons in battle to mark Celtic, <strong>Germanic</strong>, and late Roman<br />
leaders was an abiding tradition, still found on the eleventh-century Bayeux tapestry. 68<br />
Kings led armies by their dragons, the signum regis, whether the dragons perched on their<br />
standard or on their headgear. The many wyrm-warrior names show that dragon<br />
symbolism mattered to the men also. 69<br />
Reliefs on the shorter Gallehus horn from Denmark, made around AD 400, begin with<br />
gods doing the weapon dance. 70 As the gods’ actions are “the exemplary model for all<br />
significant human activities,” 71 dragon-helmet dancers from the fifth-century Års amulet<br />
to the tenth-century silver statuette from Björkö imply that as long as they worshiped<br />
Woden, warriors danced themselves into fighting fury. 72
War dances 109<br />
Though the tribal warfare of antiquity gave way over time to that of much smaller<br />
warbands in the early Middle Ages, many of the old fighting styles endured: Vendel<br />
helmet decorations show naked warriors, horse-stabbers, wolf-warriors, and dancers,<br />
much as in antiquity. 73 Like Hector, to whom war itself was dance, early medieval rulers<br />
took pride in battlefield dancing skills and may have danced between battle lines as did<br />
Totila, king of the Goths, in AD 552, decked out in golden weapons and insignia. 74<br />
Beowulf speaks of sword-”play,” and the <strong>Germanic</strong> word laikaz means dance, song, or<br />
game, as well as battle. 75 Warrior names such as “war dancer,” “weapon dancer,” “spear<br />
dancer,” “bear-dancer” and “wolf-dancer” abound. 76 <strong>Germanic</strong> battle lords, like<br />
Hellenistic kings and field marshals, sought to be fighters-as-dancers, thereby turning a<br />
fight into an artful yet risky ‘game’. 77<br />
The masked ancestor dance<br />
Silvered belt fittings from seventh-century Bavaria depict three kinds of masks: those of<br />
twin-dragon dancers, wolf-warriors, and long-hairs (Figure 11.4). 78<br />
The three strap-ends illustrated in Figure 11.4 are the largest and most carefully<br />
decorated pieces among sets of sixteen or so smaller belt fittings found in warrior graves.<br />
Though unearthed in different places, they are made of the same material, in the same<br />
shape, and by the same technique, each depicting two long, rectangular images. The mask<br />
above the twin-dragon images, and the big holes for the eyes, make it clear that they<br />
represent masks. 79<br />
The twin-dragon headgear depicted on the left strap-end has not been identified so far,<br />
but comparison with Figures 1.6, 11.1, 11.2, 11.3 leaves little doubt that this is Woden’s<br />
war-dance headgear. The god’s long, pointed beard is clearly marked here, as on the Års<br />
medallion, the Finglesham belt buckle, and the Björkö statuette. The masks are<br />
noteworthy as rare evidence of the twin-dragon war-dance headgear in southern<br />
Germany. 80<br />
The wolves depicted on the middle strap-end are recognizable from their pointed ears,<br />
broadening noses, and round muzzles. Yet these are not portraits of animals themselves,<br />
but wolf-hoods worn by men clad in the same kind of vertically striped, belted garment as<br />
the dragon dancers.<br />
The third strap-end on the right shows masks with lined squares above and below the<br />
faces that may indicate hair and beard. Found on the same kind of strap-end, these masks<br />
likely represent warriors as well, perhaps long-hair warriors. Since the three strap-ends<br />
are so much alike, the masks they depict must have been used in the same ceremony,<br />
which, given the twindragon headgear, very likely was Woden’s war dance.<br />
World-wide, warriors danced with masks on festive occasions to bring mythic<br />
ancestors and their power into the present to renew the world, and to reach the ecstasy of<br />
the beginning. 81 At festivals and battles, Germani too called their gods, heroes, and<br />
ancestors into the present. 82 Hence the masks depicted on the strap-ends, by far the oldest<br />
known images of <strong>Germanic</strong>
<strong>Ancient</strong> <strong>Germanic</strong> warriors 110<br />
Figure 11.4 Ancestor masks of twindragon<br />
dancers, wolf-warriors, and<br />
long-hairs (?). Strap-ends from<br />
Oberwarngau, Feldmoching, and<br />
Obenvangen, Bavaria. Photos:<br />
Prähistorische Staatssammlung,<br />
München.<br />
masks, 83 may have stood for such Bavarian ancestors as Woden-sprung kings, wolfwarriors,<br />
and long-hairs. 84 The power of ancestors is needed most when going into battle,<br />
which is why warriors called on them at such times by their songs, 85 and, as the strapends<br />
show, by their masked dances. The Frankish king Childerich (died 481–2) may have<br />
had a mask hanging from his spear.<br />
Years after conversion to Christianity, Saxon noblemen still danced with weapons in<br />
honor of the dead. In the mid-eleventh century, Bishop Gunther von Bamberg wore a<br />
mask of Theoderic the hero as he performed a spear-and-sword dance. 86 Two hundred
War dances 111<br />
years later, knights of the Hohenstaufen emperors watched war dances that came down<br />
from heathen, cultic performances more than a thousand years earlier. 87<br />
Dance on the battlefield<br />
War dance leaders must have had high rank, for the strap-ends are rich grave goods.<br />
Besides, the widely used <strong>Germanic</strong> name Ansehelm, “He with Woden’s Helmet,” 88 likely<br />
refers to Woden’s twin-dragon headgear; and since such names represent warrior ideals,<br />
war-dance leaders will have stood in high honor—as Tacitus says of weapon dancers.<br />
They may also have been war leaders. The Norwegian Oseberg wall-hanging from<br />
around AD 800 seems to show war-dance leaders spurring warriors in a shield castle<br />
(Figure 11.5). 89<br />
The wagon at the bottom and the women standard bearers before the line make it clear<br />
that the scene on the wall-hanging is the legendary battle at Bråvalla, where Harald<br />
Wartooth of Denmark, being old, fought his last battle from a wagon. With its wellmarshaled<br />
shield castle, the wall-hanging underscores the wonted orderliness of the battle<br />
array before fighting begins.<br />
A tall figure in the lower left of the wall-hanging wears the twin-dragon headgear and<br />
holds two crossed spears. 90 Being one-eyed, he may be Woden, known to have been at<br />
Bråvalla. He is turning back toward the warriors, as if to beckon them. Two hooded and,<br />
it seems, masked wolf- or bear-warriors follow him. Another fragment of the Oseberg<br />
wall-hanging shows the figure of a boar-warrior who, raising the shield to the height of<br />
the mouth, chants the barritus (see Figure 4.3).<br />
By his war-dance Woden on the Torslunda die rouses the wolf-hooded warrior (Figure<br />
1.6). He seems to be doing the same on the Oseberg wall-hanging. By “howling and<br />
shaking weapons,” as Hornklofi said, the wolf-warrior battle lords brought the ecstasy of<br />
gods and ancestors and the fighting fury that was true manhood to the men of the shield<br />
wall. At Bråvalla the king in his wagon, being old, did not lead the dance, leaving that to<br />
the hooded champions.<br />
To bring about an army-wide unleashing of strength and madness, the weapon dance<br />
of the skilled few needed to be linked to the barritus dance of the many. Perhaps the<br />
rhythm of both dances was the same, so the spear-and-sword dance could ignite the<br />
barritus of the shield wall. Even though the gestures of shield-wall barritus dancers had<br />
to be more restrained than those of dance leaders, the two groups may have marched to<br />
the same threestep beat, with the ecstasy of the gods and ancestors, embodied by the<br />
leaders, stirring all to fighting fury.<br />
For barritus chanters on the Valsgärde helmet (Figure 10.1), as well as the dancers on<br />
the Oseberg wall-hanging, birds have a role, and so do snake-dragons (wyrms), whether<br />
they go beside the warriors or hiss from the head of the war-dance leader. The birds call<br />
to mind the ancient war cries, Greek, Roman, and <strong>Germanic</strong>, that sounded like flocks of<br />
birds.
<strong>Ancient</strong> <strong>Germanic</strong> warriors 112<br />
Figure 11.5 The Battle at Bråvalla.<br />
Oseberg wall-hanging, Oslo. Drawing<br />
copyright University Museum of<br />
Cultural Heritage, University of Oslo,<br />
Norway.<br />
The tenth-century Lokasenna of the Edda says that the gods chased Loki away into the<br />
woods (that is, into outlawry), shaking their shields and howling at him. 91 Although this<br />
was not a battle, it was nevertheless a collective use of weapons as in a fight. It follows<br />
that in battles the gods also brandished their shields and yelled the war cry. The shieldswinging<br />
barritus war dance, then, like other warrior rituals, was god-sprung. Dancing it<br />
meant doing what the gods had done in the beginning.
Part 5<br />
CHURLS
12<br />
DART-THROWERS<br />
The foot also hurl throwing weapons, each man several,<br />
and they shoot them immensely far, being naked or lightly<br />
clad in a cloak.<br />
Tacitus, Germania<br />
Known by the Late Bronze Age as an effective weapon, darts or light spears have the<br />
great advantage that a warrior can handle a whole handful. Even the Roman imperial<br />
army used darts: reliefs show soldiers, both foot and horse, armed with small, round<br />
shields and bundles of short spears. Arrian says Roman horsemen exercised with darts. 1<br />
<strong>Germanic</strong> warriors threw darts too. Roman reliefs of the mid-first century show<br />
bundles of captured short spears with barbed and smooth blades: they may well be<br />
<strong>Germanic</strong>. Moreover, in AD 15 the Roman field marshal <strong>Germanic</strong>us told his soldiers<br />
that while only the first line of Cherusci tribesmen had long spears, the rest had praeusta<br />
aut brevia tela, “fire-hardened or short weapons.” 2 The short weapons clearly are the<br />
archaeologically well-known, all-purpose spears with narrow iron blades. The firehardened<br />
ones are likely to be shafted weapons as well, for so are the other two kinds of<br />
weapons <strong>Germanic</strong>us mentions. <strong>Germanic</strong>us thus speaks of three different kinds of<br />
spears: long ones, shorter, iron-tipped ones, and fire-hardened ones.<br />
In his Germania Tacitus likewise refers to three kinds of spears: big spears, irontipped<br />
frameae spears, and missilia: “The foot also hurl throwing weapons (missilia),<br />
each man several, and they shoot them immensely far, being naked or lightly clad in a<br />
cloak.” 3 Had Tacitus, by missilia, meant rocks or sling shot he would not have said that<br />
each man had several as that would have been self-evident. Nor can he mean clubs, for<br />
they do not fly far. 4 The missilia thus are light spears, different from frameae, in that they<br />
reached much further than regular, iron-tipped spears. 5<br />
In a closely comparable passage Strabo says that Celts and Germani had three kinds of<br />
spears: big spears, madaris spears, and small, all-wooden darts that they hurled even<br />
further than arrows fly. 6 It is the same threefold series of spears as in the two passages by<br />
Tacitus: big spears, medium-length iron tipped ones, and all-wooden ones that fly very<br />
far. The three passages confirm and explain each other and show that <strong>Germanic</strong> tribes at<br />
the turn of our era indeed used all-wooden darts in battle.<br />
The length of the light spears is unknown. While the all-wooden, barbed spear, now in<br />
the British Museum, that on February 14,1779 killed Captain Cook on the island of<br />
Hawaii, is 2.61 meters long, 7 late-Roman javelins, from 1.00 to 1.65 meters long, may<br />
give a better idea of the darts’ length. 8 Not all <strong>Germanic</strong> darts need have lacked iron tips,<br />
but many did, as we know from other sources as well, witness the Old Norse word for<br />
spear, sviða, that at first meant “spear with fire-hardened tip.” 9
Dart-throwers 115<br />
Light spears stayed in use for many centuries after Tacitus. Some fourth-and fifthcentury<br />
<strong>Germanic</strong> graves contained up to eleven darts in a quiver, 10 though we do not<br />
know whether their owners were horsemen or foot warriors. 11 Since these darts had iron<br />
blades, their owners clearly were not poor. 12 Dart throwers might even be heroes: they<br />
could show their mettle when at the beginning of battle skirmishers rushed out before the<br />
line to taunt and harass the foe. A feature of most battles in antiquity, such skirmishing<br />
was part of <strong>Germanic</strong> tactics as well: Tacitus tells how in AD 69 Batavian skirmishers<br />
with sling-shot, rocks, and other missilia tried to lure Roman forces to attack on swampy<br />
ground. 13<br />
Throwers of all-wooden darts were often lowly warriors, as can be gathered from<br />
Snorri Sturluson’s remark that in the battle at Stiklastad in AD 1030, those in the rear<br />
threw shafts with pointed stones. 14 If Norwegians of the eleventh century threw shafts<br />
with pointed stones, then the throwers of all-wooden darts in Tacitus’ time too may have<br />
done so less for lack of iron than for being poor.<br />
Tacitus nevertheless praises the churls for throwing their darts in immensum. Indeed,<br />
as we have seen in the chapter on shield castles, the often decisive boar-snout attack<br />
depended on them as much as on the elite warriors in front, for their darts, hurled from<br />
the whole width and depth of the wedge, all came down on the breaking point of the<br />
enemy line, making it crumble before the attacking boar snout. Though they were poor,<br />
dart-hurling churls were warriors to reckon with.
13<br />
ROCK-THROWERS<br />
Caesar learned that Ariovistus’ horsemen were coming<br />
closer to the hill and rode up to our men, throwing rocks<br />
and spears at them.<br />
Caesar, Gallic War<br />
It would be wrong to look down on rock-throwing. In the sixth century BC Tyrtaios’<br />
poems admonish the Spartan hind ranks to steadily keep up throwing rocks against the<br />
foe. In the battle at Plataeae, a well-flung rock hit and killed Mardonios, the Persian<br />
commander, sitting on his horse. Emperor Augustus too was hit by a rock in battle. 1<br />
Like spears or darts, rocks could bring down a man from far away. They were cheap<br />
and plentiful and hard to see or dodge. They worked well against horsemen, horses being<br />
such large targets, and they worked well from horse-back as the epigraph to this chapter<br />
shows: Ariovistus’ horse guard, very likely wheeling right in a circle, hurled rocks at<br />
Caesar’s horse guard. 2 The claim that rock-throwing proves the “inefficiency” of<br />
<strong>Germanic</strong> cavalry is mistaken, for Hadrian’s own Batavi horse guard trained in throwing<br />
stones while riding by. 3<br />
Rocks for throwing could be heavy: in AD 9 a <strong>Germanic</strong> horseman by the name of<br />
Pusio (“Little John”) in the service of <strong>Germanic</strong>us hurled a rock of such size against the<br />
wall of Splonum in Dalmatia that it broke the breast-work and brought down a defender<br />
who was leaning against it. This so frightened the others that they fled and the wall was<br />
taken. In the mid-third century, the Goths tried to take Marcianopolis by throwing rocks. 4<br />
Vegetius never tires of saying that Roman soldiers must learn to throw rocks well. Yet<br />
hurling well-aimed rocks is an art best learned in childhood, which gave northern<br />
warriors an advantage. 5 Rocks, easily found in river beds, also suited northern warriors<br />
who lacked a supply line to repair and replenish their weapons during a campaign. 6<br />
Rocks that served as weapons have been recovered from <strong>Germanic</strong> graves, and <strong>Germanic</strong><br />
slingers are shown on the Aurelian Column, ready to shoot across a river. Like darts,<br />
rocks still served as weapons in the Middle Ages, above all in sea battles. Works of art<br />
and written sources stress their role in battle. 7<br />
Standing behind the shield wall, guarded by first-rank elite fighters with long spears<br />
and big shields, churls shot arrows 8 and hurled sling-shot, rocks, and darts. Halfway<br />
between elite warriors and churls ranked those who, according to Tacitus, fought with<br />
iron-tipped frameae spears both from afar and from close up and who could therefore<br />
take a place in the front line of the shield castle if need be. Bowmen, slingers, dart- and<br />
rocks-throwers could not and therefore ranked lower, even though they may have<br />
outnumbered all others.<br />
From the first century AD to the time of the sagas this social structure of <strong>Germanic</strong><br />
armies seems to have changed very little, for as we have seen when looking at shield
Rock-throwers 117<br />
castles, whenever columns (cunei) or shield castles clashed with one another, kings and<br />
elite warriors fought in the first lines and churls in the rear. Of the battle at Stiklastad in<br />
AD 1030, Snorri Sturlusson says:<br />
Those who stood foremost struck blows, those standing next behind them<br />
thrust with their spears, whilst those behind let fly both with spears or<br />
arrows or threw stones or hand-axes or shafts with pointed stones. 9<br />
Even the ratio of churls to elite warriors, it seems, stayed the same from antiquity to the<br />
Middle Ages. Just as most first-century warriors, according to Tacitus, had but short or<br />
fire-hardened javelins while only those in the first rank wielded long lances, so Anglo-<br />
Norman churls in the eleventh century backed their elite warriors in the first line by<br />
making ranks dense enough to withstand cavalry charges and allowing knights to focus<br />
on specific attacks within the battle. 10
Part 6<br />
HORSEMEN
14<br />
LANCERS<br />
[Hadrian ordered Roman horsemen to practice] the attackand-flight<br />
maneuvers of Sarmatian and <strong>Germanic</strong> lancers<br />
riding in formation.<br />
Arrian, Tactica<br />
Lancers in antiquity<br />
Horsemen have used lances, long thrusting spears, ever since cavalry itself came to be,<br />
and such weapons are found among many Indo-European nations: a Mycenaean<br />
horseman wields a big lance about 1200 BC; Massagetae and Chorasmians of Central<br />
Asia had horse lancers by the early first millennium; and Median lancers are known by<br />
the eighth century BC. 1 A Celtic Hallstatt scabbard of the fifth-century BC shows<br />
horsemen with spears twice as long as their steeds, 2 and according to Polybius, Roman<br />
horsemen of the Middle Republic fought with such weapons. 3<br />
<strong>Germanic</strong> horsemen too wielded long spears, as seen in scene 5 of Trajan’s Column<br />
that portrays the emperor’s bodyguard of Equites Singulares Augusti or Batavi (Figure<br />
14.1). 4<br />
In this scene, five guardsmen have alighted and stand behind the dais on which the<br />
emperor holds a council of war. A masonry wall marks them off from another column of<br />
soldiers who arrive from the left, also with horses. The guardsmen bear small-bladed long<br />
lances, the only shaft weapons on Trajan’s Column. The artist, it seems, depicted the<br />
unusual lances because they characterized this part of Trajan’s bodyguard. 5<br />
One of the lances, held upside down, is fitted with a ball at the end. The ball, a<br />
counterweight, strengthened the weapon’s thrust. By moving the center of gravity farther<br />
back, it also allowed the warrior to hold the lance nearer the butt end and thereby<br />
lengthen the reach of the blade. Late Roman horse guards too wielded lances with<br />
counterweight balls. 6<br />
Tacitus, as we have seen, says that some first-century <strong>Germanic</strong> warriors fought with<br />
long spears, but scholars wondered whether he meant only foot
<strong>Ancient</strong> <strong>Germanic</strong> warriors 120<br />
Figure 14.1 Lancers of Trajan’s<br />
bodyguard. Trajan’s Column, scene 5.<br />
Photo: Deutsches Archäologisches<br />
Institut, Rome, Inst. Neg. 31.259<br />
or both foot and horse. Scene 5 of Trajan’s Column answers that question, as do lance<br />
blades found in graves containing spurs: <strong>Germanic</strong> horse too fought with long spears. 7<br />
The Batavi horsemen who in AD 69 overran Otho’s gladiators, are likely to have used<br />
such lances, as horse could hardly otherwise overcome well-armored foot. 8<br />
The lances of the horse guard on Trajan’s Column are long but not bulky. The lance of<br />
a trooper serving in ala I Canninefatium at Gerulata (Rusovce in Slovakia), on the other<br />
hand, is thick as well as long (Figure 14.2). 9
Lancers 121<br />
While other pictures of spear bearers often shorten the length of the weapon to fit the<br />
length of the warrior, the Gerulata picture devotes nearly half its space to portray the<br />
length and bulk of the shaft. Clearly, the horseman took<br />
Figure 14.2 Horseman holding a huge<br />
lance. Gravestone from Gerulata,<br />
Slovakia. Hošek, Tituli 1984, 54ff., no.<br />
23: Sandstone, 110×90×22 cm. I owe<br />
the photograph to the kindness of Dr<br />
Schmidtová, Bratislava.<br />
pride in the weapon on his shoulder. 10 Its shaft is longer than that of any other lance on<br />
Roman gravestones—nearly twice as long as the horse. Growing thick toward the butt, it<br />
looks heavy indeed, but massiveness strengthened its thrust and kept it from breaking. It<br />
was therefore an outstanding weapon against horse or foot arrayed behind shields. Its<br />
length served for thrusting rather than cutting and thus used only a small blade. Like<br />
medieval lances, it has a triangular pennon behind the blade. What use the pennon was<br />
we do not know; perhaps it served as a badge or for signaling; certainly the shaft is so<br />
massive that a pennon would not interfere with its use. 11 The unusually heavy spear was<br />
not standard Roman equipment, but a special weapon of ala I Canninefatium.<br />
Tacitus says Canninefates had the same origin and language as Batavi, with whom<br />
they shared the island at the mouth of the Rhine. And though fewer than the Batavi, they<br />
were no less brave. 12 The ala raised among them joined the Batavian uprising and was<br />
thus moved out of Lower Germany in AD 70. By AD 92 it was in Gerulata in Upper<br />
Pannonia to defend the province against <strong>Germanic</strong> Quadi, whose horsemen also wielded<br />
long spears. 13 By the time the trooper’s gravestone was set up, sometime in the second<br />
century AD, the unit had been away from the lower Rhine for fifty or even a hundred<br />
years. Yet it could very well have kept up Canninefatian fighting traditions in weapons as<br />
well as tactics. Hadrian wanted <strong>Germanic</strong> cavalry tactics preserved in the Roman army,
<strong>Ancient</strong> <strong>Germanic</strong> warriors 122<br />
as the epigraph to this chapter shows; and like the Batavi horse guard, regular Roman<br />
auxiliary units often held on to their native fighting styles. 14 Hence, the lance of the<br />
Gerulata trooper seems to be a Canninefatian <strong>Germanic</strong> weapon, one of the oversized<br />
lances Tacitus calls hastae ingentes or enormes hastae. 15<br />
Such a heavy weapon was far more dangerous to the enemy than an ordinary lance. 16<br />
But there was a price to be paid for carrying it. Only a man of towering strength could<br />
wield it, and the Gerulata horse, huge as it is, may have borne the weight of lance and<br />
rider only because the rider lacked helmet, hauberk, and shield.<br />
Lances with shafts of even width could be held in many ways: overarm, underarm, at<br />
the height of the thigh with the right arm nearly straight, or held up by the knee, couched<br />
as in the Middle Ages, or gripped with both hands. 17 Some horsemen of ala I<br />
Canninefatium must have had such lighter lances of even width, for we know that they<br />
used them in the “Sarmatian” way, held with both hands. 18 The thick Canninefatian lance,<br />
on the other hand, was best borne on the shoulder when not thrust or thrown. Maurice<br />
describes this at the end of the sixth century, when he states that “blond” peoples hold<br />
their lances on their shoulders—further evidence that the Gerulata lance is a <strong>Germanic</strong><br />
weapon. 19<br />
With such a lance a warrior might still jab or throw but he could not wheel around<br />
easily or use the weapon in the many ways of a light, slender lance. Clearly, fighting with<br />
heavy lances required tactics other than Sarmatian wheelings. Hence, as in the epigraph<br />
to this chapter, Arrian distinguished <strong>Germanic</strong> from Sarmatian lancer maneuvers. 20<br />
The Gerulata rider holds his weapon on the left, and so do others, as shown in Figure<br />
14.3. He may do so for practical as well as artistic reasons: if horsemen wanted to ride off<br />
to the right after an attack, as both Romans and Germani usually did, they had to fight<br />
with the lance on the left. 21 In the later Middle Ages, the lance, held on the right but<br />
pointed left across the neck of the horse, served the same purpose.<br />
For many miles downstream from Gerulata along the Danube, Romans faced Quadi.<br />
To deal with them, Trajan raised a cavalry unit armed with long lances, ala I Ulpia<br />
Contariorum, 1,000 strong, that became the leading cavalry unit in Upper Pannonia,<br />
holding the fort at Arrabona (Györ in Hungary) in the middle of the Quadian frontier. 22<br />
Whether these troopers used slender or bulky weapons, lancers were the most effective<br />
fighters against Quadi. 23<br />
Still further downstream, perhaps at Aquincum (Budapest), stood the gravestone of<br />
Flavius Bonio who served in the ala I Tungrorum Frontoniana. Like the Gerulata trooper,<br />
Bonio holds a long lance on his shoulder while his steed walks quietly. With his shield on<br />
the left and the lance on the right, he may have served a tactical role other than that of the<br />
Gerulata trooper—like wheeling to the left—but the technique of holding the lance on the<br />
shoulder was the same. Very likely his long-lance fighting style also came from Lower<br />
Germany, for ala Tungrorum like ala Canninefatium had stayed there until the time of the<br />
Batavian uprising in AD 69–70, and Germani were still serving in it in Pannonia. 24<br />
Hadrian trained his lancers to ride attacks in both Sarmatian and <strong>Germanic</strong> fashion. 25<br />
Unlike moralists like Ammianus, who held lancers’ tactics of sweeping up and wheeling<br />
away to befit robbers rather than warriors, Hadrian knew what was needed to win. 26<br />
Lancers were dangerous, not only in recklessly straight assaults on cavalry as at<br />
Adrianople in AD 378 but even against well-ordered foot. 27
Lancers 123<br />
In the fourth century Ammianus defined the warrior style of the Alamannic king<br />
Chnodomar by his huge lance. In AD 357 at the battle of Strassburg, he writes,<br />
Chnodomar was “daring and confident in the vast strength of his hands, huge, high on a<br />
foaming horse, and braced by a throwing spear of frightful size.” 28 Chnodomar’s great,<br />
big spear heralded a warrior of overpowering strength. 29<br />
Lancers in the early Middle Ages<br />
An embossed plaque on the helmet found in grave 1 at Vendel shows a Swedish<br />
horseman riding to battle (Figure 14.3). Wearing a boar helmet, the horseman carries a<br />
sword, a shield, and a very thick spear. Like the<br />
Figure 14.3 Horseman with a heavy<br />
spear on his shoulder. Bronze foil from<br />
the helmet in grave 1 at Vendel,<br />
Uppland. After Stolpe and Arne,<br />
Graffältet 1912, plate 5.2.<br />
Gerulata trooper he holds the spear with one hand, resting it on his shoulder. Similar<br />
scenes suggest that he will either thrust or throw the spear. Indeed, during the early<br />
Middle Ages most lances were used for throwing as well as thrusting. 30 Even the heavy,
<strong>Ancient</strong> <strong>Germanic</strong> warriors 124<br />
winged lances held by horsemen on the Vendel-helmet foils could be used both ways like<br />
the lances on the eleventh-century Bayeux tapestry.<br />
By good luck we have a description from around AD 600 about maneuvering with<br />
shouldered lances. In his Byzantine army handbook Maurice describes a ten-man deep<br />
cavalry attack of 320 men, in which the first two lines (dekarchs and pentarchs) are<br />
lancers:<br />
The dekarchs and pentarchs lean forward, guarding their head and part of<br />
their horse’s neck with their shield while holding the lance on their<br />
shoulder like the “blond” peoples. Hidden beneath their shield, they<br />
advance in good order, at a canter only and not too wild, so that the<br />
vehemence of the charge does not break up the ranks before they come to<br />
blows, which is a real risk. The bowmen behind them shoot. 31<br />
Together, the Gerulata gravestone, the Vendel plaque, and Maurice’s description leave no<br />
doubt that cavalry attacks with shoulder-held spears were a <strong>Germanic</strong> fighting technique.<br />
Maurice wants Byzantine lancers to use this technique as it was efficient, but perhaps<br />
also as many Byzantine horsemen were of <strong>Germanic</strong> origin and already skilled in it.<br />
Maurice thus lets us see what Arrian meant in the early second century when he<br />
reported that <strong>Germanic</strong> lancers rehearsed the formations in which they fought. One of<br />
these formations must have been the attack with shoulder-held lances. It breathes the<br />
same spirit of order in battle, of keeping the ranks unbroken until the clash with the foe,<br />
that characterized the shield castle of the foot described in Chapter 9, to which it is<br />
related. Only during hand-to-hand fighting did unbridled recklessness take over. 32<br />
Another passage of Maurice has been translated to say that “<strong>Germanic</strong> warriors prefer<br />
fighting on foot and in rapid charges (elasia),” which would mean that they preferred<br />
fighting on foot over fighting on horseback. Yet Maurice uses the word elasia always for<br />
cavalry charges. 33 Hence this passage too should refer to cavalry charges, stating that<br />
early medieval warriors delighted in both, fighting on foot and on horseback.<br />
Little is known of early medieval cavalry formations in northern Europe save that<br />
<strong>Germanic</strong> horsemen at all periods could alight to fight on foot. 34 The foils on Vendel<br />
helmets and the Pliezhausen disc (Figure 17.5) show that lancers attacked at a canter, just<br />
as Maurice wanted it to be done. But they say nothing about formations. This makes<br />
Maurice’s testimony all the more valuable. Maurice’s passage, revealing the <strong>Germanic</strong><br />
cavalry attack formation with shoulder-held lances as the model for sixth-century<br />
Byzantine cavalry, shows that the northern lancer tradition continued in full force from<br />
antiquity into the Middle Ages. 35<br />
The most outstanding feat of fighting with the thrusting spear is seen on a helmet-foil<br />
scene from Valsgarde that shows a lancer on horseback lifting his foe bodily into the air<br />
at the tip of his lance while the victim flails with arms and legs. 36 It is the great<br />
triumphant image of the time, Thorolf’s deed in Egils saga, here done on horseback. 37<br />
Fighting from horseback with a huge lance was thus a <strong>Germanic</strong> warrior style from<br />
early Batavi and Canninefates horsemen to those of the Vendel period and on to knights<br />
of the high Middle Ages, with their heavy, couched lances.
15<br />
SPEAR-THROWERS<br />
They carry spears…with a narrow and short iron blade, but<br />
so sharp and handy that they fight with the same weapon<br />
as needed either from afar or from close-up. Even<br />
horsemen make do with shield and spear. Tacitus,<br />
Germania<br />
Barbed spears in antiquity<br />
Most <strong>Germanic</strong> warriors, whether foot or horse, were spear-throwers. 1 Unlike Celts and<br />
Romans, however, they often had among their weapons a spear with barbs. 2 West- and<br />
north-<strong>Germanic</strong> graves from the end of the pre-Roman Iron Age onward yield barbed<br />
spears. 3 Roman triumphal art such as Caligula’s silver disc from Niederbieber and firstcentury<br />
coins also portray <strong>Germanic</strong> barbed spears and so does a gravestone from the late<br />
second century AD showing Quadi warriors: 4 Romans, it seems, took barbed spears to be<br />
typically <strong>Germanic</strong>.<br />
The advantages and disadvantages of barbed blades are hard to assess. They cause<br />
more frightful flesh wounds and are hard to pull out, yet throughout ancient warfare far<br />
fewer barbed spears are found than smooth-bladed ones. In antiquity, only a rare Greek<br />
spear-fighter of the Geometric period has such a weapon, and only the Iberian Lusitani<br />
were known for (all-iron) barbed javelins. 5 Designed to slow down prey, barbed spears<br />
were often used in hunting, but seldom in war. There must have been a price to be paid<br />
for using them, but we do not know whether the price was that they penetrated less, cost<br />
more, broke more easily, or handled more awkwardly than smooth-bladed spears.<br />
Perhaps they were less honorable. 6<br />
Barbed spears worked best against unarmored foes and horses. Thus, in Hannibal’s<br />
war against Rome in 211 BC, Roman light velites with hooked spears (incurvae hastae)<br />
brought down the Capuan horse. 7 Like Roman velites, Germani may have used barbed<br />
spears against unarmored foes and horses. Not only did most of their foes—other<br />
Germani—lack armor, which made the use of barbed spears against them especially<br />
effective, but, like velites, <strong>Germanic</strong> foot ran with the horse, fought alongside, and<br />
wounded enemy steeds and riders from below, for which barbed spears were the best<br />
weapons. 8<br />
Several one-barbed spear blades have been found. 9 Handy for throwing, thrusting, and<br />
cutting in hand-to-hand combat, they are also good for tearing at a foe’s shield or<br />
helmet. 10 A one-barbed spear could pull a rider from his horse. The devil too found such<br />
a weapon useful, witness Dürer’s 1513 engraving “Knight, Death, Devil.”<br />
A twin-barbed throwing spear is carved on a second-century gravestone of the Roman<br />
emperor’s Batavi horse guard (Figure 15.1). 11<br />
The owner of the gravestone was a weapon keeper (armorum custos), and like other<br />
soldiers of that rank he had his weapons depicted in unwonted detail. Not only is his<br />
barbed spear a <strong>Germanic</strong> weapon, but so is his long, truncated shield. 12 Since Batavi
<strong>Ancient</strong> <strong>Germanic</strong> warriors 126<br />
horse guards trained in such <strong>Germanic</strong> tactics as swimming across rivers fully armed,<br />
they must also have used <strong>Germanic</strong> weapons. 13 Tacitus spells this out when he writes that<br />
Italicus, a Cheruscan prince, was trained in Rome “in the uses of weapons and horses<br />
customary to both his native and our own forces.” Emperors raised their horse guard<br />
among Germani, not only for their looks and trustworthiness but for their wonted fighting<br />
styles too, one of which was the throwing of barbed spears. 14<br />
In time, barbed spears became weapons of prestige. If one may trust Constantine’s<br />
famous silver medallion from Ticinum, they were the main weapon of his horse guard. 15<br />
Coins from Elagabalus (AD 218–222) to Romulus Augustulus (AD 476) show emperors<br />
wielding barbed lanceolae spears. 16 To look like their guardsmen and share their fame,<br />
emperors may indeed have wielded such spears. 17<br />
Barbed spears are often found together with smooth-bladed ones. Both foot and horse<br />
would first have thrown barbed spears, then come to blows with thrusting weapons. 18<br />
One or two spears for throwing and one for hand-to-hand fighting are obvious choices for<br />
warriors everywhere. 19 Hawaiian warriors had one long, smooth-bladed spear (3.6<br />
meters) for thrusting, and two shorter ones (2.6 meters or less), sometimes barbed, for<br />
throwing. 20<br />
Barbed spears in the early Middle Ages<br />
<strong>Germanic</strong> warriors still wielded barbed spears in the early Middle Ages. Finds from their<br />
graves reveal that from the fourth century to the seventh, high-ranking Alamanni, Franks,<br />
Saxons, and Bavarians fought with barbed spears. 21<br />
Bronze foils on the sixth-century helmet found in grave 14 at Vendel pointedly illustrate<br />
how barbed spears hampered foes: they stick in one fighter’s dress and another’s shield.<br />
When warriors had two shaft weapons, one tended to be barbed, the other smooth-bladed.<br />
This combination is known from graves of the first century AD in northern Germany,<br />
from head-stones of third-century <strong>Germanic</strong> troops serving in the Roman army, from<br />
Scandinavian graves a century later, and from dancers depicted on seventh-century<br />
Vendel helmets. 22 The barbed spear was no doubt meant to be thrown first, while the<br />
smooth-bladed spear might be either thrown or used in hand-to-hand fighting.
Spear-throwers 127<br />
Figure 15.1 Spear and shield of a<br />
second-century horse guardsman.<br />
Gravestone, Rome. Photo: Michael<br />
Speidel.<br />
The painful but heroic response to a barbed spear that pierced both shield and flesh<br />
was to break the shaft, with the blade still in the wound, thereby freeing the shield and
<strong>Ancient</strong> <strong>Germanic</strong> warriors 128<br />
making it possible to pull out the blade. Doing this was, according to Jordanes, the glory<br />
of Rugians in AD 501. It was also Byrhtnoth’s great deed in the battle of Maldon in AD<br />
991. 23<br />
The barbed spear is Woden’s weapon on fifth- and sixth-century bracteate amulets,<br />
both on foot and on horseback. 24 Wielded by the god, the barbed spear by then was a<br />
weapon of prestige. One of its <strong>Germanic</strong> names, it seems, was gaisaz, from which come<br />
such atheling names as Ariogais (second century), Gaiseric (fifth century), Garibald<br />
(sixth century), and Chrodegar (seventh century). 25<br />
On some bracteate amulets, Woden’s spear has a throwing strap attached to the middle<br />
of the shaft. Used since the second millennium BC by Indo-Europeans such as the<br />
Philistines, the throwing or rifling strap is found on <strong>Germanic</strong> spears throughout the first<br />
millennium of our era. 26 Easy to use with the first weapon thrown, it is not as easily used<br />
thereafter in the midst of the fighting. It thus marks a spear as the weapon likely to be<br />
used first. 27 Woden threw such a spear at the beginning of battle, 28 and spear-throwers<br />
may have thought of themselves as repeating Woden’s throw.<br />
Barbed spears were even brought up to date. By the fourth and fifth century most<br />
leading warriors wore hauberks. Frankish noblemen, therefore, changed the barbed spear<br />
into an ango whose narrow heavy head gave it enough thrust to pierce hauberks, and<br />
whose shaft, wound with iron, could not be hacked off once it stuck in dress, armor,<br />
shield, or flesh. Its weight meant that a warrior could carry only one ango, and its barbs<br />
meant that, whether thrown or thrust, it could be used only once. Like regular barbed<br />
spears it is therefore often found together with smooth-bladed weapons. Thrown or used<br />
in hand-to-hand fighting, the ango worked well and stayed in use for several hundred<br />
years. 29 Found only in very rich graves, it was, like all heavy spears, a weapon of elite<br />
warriors.<br />
After the seventh century, it seems, horsemen no longer used short spears, 30 but<br />
barbed blades on long throwing spears are still prominent on the eleventh-century Bayeux<br />
tapestry. In antiquity and the early Middle Ages, then, barbed blades gave <strong>Germanic</strong><br />
weaponry “a note of its own.” 31 In use since the pre-Roman Iron Age, they too mark<br />
northern Europe’s abidingness of weaponry and fighting styles. 32
16<br />
WHEELING RIGHT<br />
They ride their horses straight ahead, or with one wheel to<br />
the right, closing into a circle so no one is last.<br />
Tacitus, Germania<br />
When fighting on horseback first came to central Europe in the seventh-century BC,<br />
Illyrian horsemen shot at least two spears at their foes as they closed in and before they<br />
reached for the battle-ax. Celts must have done much the same, for Roman imperial<br />
cavalry trained in the Celtic tradition hurled two, three, even four spears as they rode up<br />
to the enemy. 1 <strong>Germanic</strong> horsemen did the same.<br />
Throughout history, the classic cavalry attack was to ride straight into the enemy line,<br />
horse or foot, and try to break it. <strong>Germanic</strong> horsemen rode such attacks as well, but while<br />
this was best done with long spears, 2 few Germani used long spears or swords: their<br />
horsemen “made do with shield and framea spear.” 3 A major mode of attack thus must<br />
have been to throw spears from afar. This could be done particularly well when riding in<br />
a circle within throwing distance, 4 a technique that added greatly to cavalry efficiency.<br />
A battle between Cherusci and Batavi horsemen in AD 16 may be typical of <strong>Germanic</strong><br />
cavalry engagements. Feigning flight, the Cherusci had lured the Batavi under<br />
Chariovalda onto level ground between hills before suddenly turning and attacking.<br />
When the Batavi responded by defending themselves back to back, the Cherusci assailed<br />
them “from afar and from up close,” hurling spears, it seems, from a distance while riding<br />
in a circle, 5 and thrusting with spears from up close. It is hard to say why the Cherusci<br />
used both forms of attack. Perhaps pride demanded that they not only shoot their foes<br />
from a safe distance but show courage in hand-to-hand fighting. They must have been<br />
skilled in both tactics, for nearly all Batavi, among them Chariovalda and many leading<br />
men beside him, fell.<br />
Tacitus describes the tactics of <strong>Germanic</strong> horse:<br />
Nor are [their horses] taught to change their circular movements like ours.<br />
They ride them straight ahead, or with one wheel to the right, closing into<br />
a circle, so no one is last. 6<br />
Scholars took Tacitus’ words to mean that <strong>Germanic</strong> horse had only one way of<br />
attacking: riding up to the enemy and then turning away to the right. 7 Tacitus, however,<br />
plainly speaks of two kinds of attack: one in which horsemen ride straight to the enemy<br />
line, trying to break it, 8 and another in which they ride single file and wheel in a righthand<br />
circle before the enemy line while throwing spears (or darts and rocks) at it. As<br />
<strong>Germanic</strong> horsemen had throwing spears they could use for thrusting as well, the circling<br />
could turn at once from a throwing into a thrusting attack. 9
<strong>Ancient</strong> <strong>Germanic</strong> warriors 130<br />
While cantering in a circle, spear-throwing was kept up without a break, or in Tacitus’<br />
words no one was “last.” The first to ride against the enemy thus circled back to follow<br />
the last, thereby creating an unbroken circle. Describing how Roman horse trained for<br />
this tactic, Arrian, like Tacitus, stresses the need to preserve the circle. 10 Even in a<br />
straight line attack horsemen might shoot several spears at the enemy before closing in, 11<br />
but in circling attacks footmen could keep on handing them fresh weapons at the far end<br />
of the circle. 12<br />
The right-circling maneuver required training but was easier than left-circling. In the<br />
latter, the horseman had to shift hands, and the rider had to shift his shield towards the<br />
enemy to guard his otherwise open right side. 13 The left-circling attack being so complex,<br />
<strong>Germanic</strong> horsemen did not go in for it, according to Tacitus, though surely, like all<br />
cavalry, they could wheel left in the open field. 14<br />
Circling, even if only to the right, betrays discipline and skill: the horsemen had to<br />
train for it. 15 They must have dressed their horses in a training rink, a schooling for which<br />
their neighbors, the Celtic Sequani, were famous (though Ariovistus’ skilled horsemen<br />
overcame them). 16 When under attack themselves, horsemen, to stand up to flights of<br />
spears, needed great skill in forming a cavalry shield wall with shields locked both in<br />
front and overhead. 17<br />
By and large, ancient authors found <strong>Germanic</strong> fighting on horseback outstanding.<br />
Hence when a leading authority on medieval warfare wonders whether Germani before<br />
AD 500 had horsemen at all, the Dark Ages seem dark indeed. 18 Among Caesar’s army in<br />
58 BC, rumor had it that Ariovistus’ Suebian troops, many of them horsemen, were<br />
trained to the utmost, 19 and in Augustus’ time King Marbod of the Suebi had his horse<br />
guard so well trained that it became a danger to the Roman Empire. 20 Tacitus may have<br />
had circling attacks (and feigned flight) in mind when he wrote that the Tencteri tribe on<br />
the Rhine excelled in equestris disciplina. 21 The vaunted indiscipline of the Germani,<br />
then, did not intefere with their cavalry training, and one may believe Aurelius Victor<br />
when he says that in AD 213 Caracalla, on the river Main, faced the Alamanni “who fight<br />
wonderfully well from horseback.” 22<br />
<strong>Warriors</strong> on foot prided themselves in how far they could throw a spear—Germani<br />
could throw theirs in immensum.23 Roman horsemen took pride in hitting home with four<br />
medium-heavy spears while riding up to the foe. <strong>Germanic</strong> horsemen, whose circling<br />
attacks resembled Roman ones, surely also took pride in how many spears they could<br />
shoot and how well they hit the foe before they closed in on him. 24 The result of it was<br />
daunting firepower. 25<br />
Weapons found in graves suggest that toward the end of the first century AD<br />
<strong>Germanic</strong> horsemen had grown in number. Literary sources show that they grew further<br />
still during the third century. 26 Their fighting power is borne out by the role Emperor<br />
Maximinus gave them in AD 238: to ride into Italy as the vanguard of the imperial field<br />
army, daring and spirited fighters as they were. 27 Throughout the rest of the third century,<br />
Rome went on to raise elite cavalry regiments from <strong>Germanic</strong> tribes, such as the equites<br />
Marcomanni or the alae Alamannorum, Francorum, Iuthungorum, and Vandilorum. 28 All<br />
this points to more than mere reckless attacks: it betokens efficiency that comes from<br />
skillful fighting in formation and shooting well-timed flights of spears.<br />
Roman art sometimes depicts <strong>Germanic</strong> horsemen bare-chested or with light coats<br />
fluttering from their shoulders. 29 That may have been their true battle dress. Even Rome’s
Wheeling right 131<br />
own early horsemen, the Celeres, fought bare-chested, wearing no more than a loincloth<br />
and sometimes a light coat. 30 Bare-chested horsemen can throw weapons farther than men<br />
burdened by armor, and when attacking or fleeing they can rush faster through enemy<br />
missiles. Light dress also lets warriors quickly get back on their feet if unhorsed, while<br />
armored horsemen, once fallen from their steeds, are helpless and easily finished off. 31<br />
Besides, horsemen free from armor could alight nimbly to fight on foot as horse-stabbers<br />
and then mount again. 32<br />
Hadrian wanted his horsemen to ride in both <strong>Germanic</strong>-style lancer and spearthrowing<br />
formations. Their spear-throwing attacks, then, must have been nearly as<br />
frightening as their lancer charges. Hadrian even wanted the men to raise their battle cry<br />
in German, as Dacian horsemen were to raise theirs in Dacian, and Raetians in Raetian. 33<br />
The horsemen of the emperor’s guard, recruited in the Roman provinces of Upper and<br />
Lower Germany, Raetia, and Dacia, 34 brought along northern European, Iron Age<br />
fighting styles of a skill and daring that made them the Empire’s best cavalry.<br />
In his army handbook from the end of the sixth century, Maurice still wants the<br />
Byzantine army to train for circling attacks. Yet of the “blond peoples,” the Franks and<br />
Lombards, he says that while they fight very well as horsemen, they scorn the orderliness<br />
of tactical formations during the fray, especially when on horseback. 35 Perhaps <strong>Germanic</strong><br />
horsemen had given up circling, preferring the straight attack. Norman knights on the<br />
eleventh-century Bayeux tapestry ride no circling attack, but while some stab or thrust<br />
with their weapons, most are still spear-throwers.
Part 7<br />
FOOT AGAINST HORSE
17<br />
HORSE-STABBERS<br />
The horsemen sent by Caesar…wrought wonders of<br />
bravery. Many slid from their steeds, dove beneath their<br />
foes’ horses, and struck them in the underbelly.<br />
Plutarch, Crassus<br />
Indo-European horse-stabbers<br />
Only the most undaunted foot warrior can face horse-warriors, be they on chariots or<br />
horseback. But foot fought very efficiently as supporters of cavalry or chariotry. Bronze<br />
Age charioteers of the second millennium BC relied on fleet-footed “runners” to back<br />
them in battle and to finish off enemy chariot crews whose vehicles had crashed or whose<br />
horses were wounded. For this task Egyptian Pharaohs hired bare-chested Indo-European<br />
Shardanas, warriors from Sardinia armed with swords and short spears. 1 Later, when<br />
horsemen came to play a role on battlefields, runners armed with swords or short spears<br />
strengthened them to great effect.<br />
Few warriors on foot dared to take on horsemen by themselves, but some did. On a<br />
fifth-century Etruscan stele from Bologna, a tall, altogether naked Celtic swordsman<br />
coolly faces an armored horseman who rushes him and has his horse kick at him. 2<br />
Remarkably, the naked swordsman stands as tall as the rider on horseback, and his<br />
fearless stance makes it clear that this is an even-handed fight with the outcome wide<br />
open. While Celtic and <strong>Germanic</strong> warriors often were tall, size may have been<br />
particularly helpful to naked swordfighters, giving them speed in the attack and a greater<br />
reach than that of their foes in hand-to-hand fighting. The stele shows that by the fifth<br />
century BC Celtic foot-warriors, wielding straight swords, dared to face enemy horsemen<br />
even in single combat. In the first century BC Diodore still reports that Celtic foot, sword<br />
in hand, daringly met enemy horsemen. 3<br />
For a warrior on foot to take on a horseman openly and evenly was an act of either<br />
great daring or dire need. There was, however, a way to fight a horse-man on somewhat<br />
more even terms: bringing him down by stabbing his steed.<br />
An alabaster urn of the second century BC from Chiusi, now in Florence, portrays a<br />
clash between a horseman and a Celtic foot-warrior, this time with the end in sight. 4 The<br />
long-haired, naked Celt, holding booty in his left, lacks a shield. Sunk on his right knee,<br />
he has dived between the forelegs of the enemy horse and with his straight sword stabs<br />
the steed in the belly. At the same time, the horseman with his lance hits him in the groin.<br />
The Chiusi scene, derived from reliefs depicting third-century battles between Celts and<br />
Greeks, is so striking and specific that it is likely to portray a typical Celtic fighting style.
<strong>Ancient</strong> <strong>Germanic</strong> warriors 134<br />
Early Roman horsemen too had to face naked horse-stabbers. Coins of 57 BC, but<br />
harking back to events in earlier centuries, show a helmeted, naked swordsman beneath<br />
the horse of the tribunus militum Manius Fonteius. 5 The enemy, it seems, is a highranking<br />
Gaul, for as with Roman horsemen of the Middle Republic or with naked<br />
berserks, to wear a helmet but no armor was to signal high rank and great daring. 6 Roman<br />
horsemen of the Early and Middle Republic also fought in this style, some of them<br />
alighting from their horses to overcome enemy cavalry. 7<br />
Thucydides in the fifth century BC says of Thracians from north Greece that “they<br />
dashed out against horsemen and then closed ranks again.” In dashing out they may have<br />
attacked the enemy’s horses. Certainly they did so in the fourth century, for silver coins<br />
of 335–315 BC, struck by Patraos, the Paionian vassal of Alexander the Great, show a<br />
bare-chested, kilt-clad Thracian infantryman with a javelin (in other versions with a<br />
curved sword) as he fights against a spear-wielding Paionian horseman and tries to dive<br />
beneath his foe’s steed. 8 Livy too writes about Thracians attacking like this in 171 BC:<br />
“Loudly yelling, and furious like long penned-up wild animals, they ran ahead of all<br />
others up to the Italic horsemen and their lances. They cut the horses’ legs or stabbed<br />
them in the belly.” 9 For stabbing the horses they will have used javelins, for cutting the<br />
horses’ legs, curved swords. Archaeological and literary source bear each other out.<br />
Patraos’ coin as an archaeological source shows the Thracians’ weapons and nakedness;<br />
Livy, as a literary source, reveals their tactics of loudly yelling and running at the foe<br />
ahead of the main body of troops, even without the help of their own horsemen.<br />
Dacian warriors, relatives of the Thracians, also fought as horse-stabbers. The Trajanic<br />
frieze on Constantine’s Arch in Rome highlights a Dacian who dives beneath Trajan’s<br />
horse perhaps to stab it. 10 Since the scene was to broadcast Trajan’s manhood in braving<br />
great risk, horse-stabbers must have been some of the most dreaded foes. Among Indo-<br />
Europeans, horse-stabbing clearly was an old, widely known, and much-feared fighting<br />
technique.<br />
<strong>Germanic</strong> horse-stabbers in the time of Caesar<br />
Caesar encountered the horse-stabbing warrior style in 55 BC when he led his army<br />
against the Usipi and Tencteri near the mouth of the Moselle river. There, as 800 Usipi<br />
horsemen attacked his vanguard of 5,000 Gallic horse, an astonishing thing happened.<br />
Caesar says of the Usipi:<br />
As was their wont, they alighted from their steeds, stabbed several of our<br />
horses from beneath and sent the rest fleeing in such a fright that they did<br />
not halt until they saw our army. In that skirmish 74 horsemen of ours<br />
were killed, among them high-born, brave Piso of Aquitania whose<br />
grandfather had been king of that nation. 11<br />
Caesar’s report makes it clear how effective such horse-stabbers could be: to the point<br />
that they decided a battle. His account suggests that at the time Gauls no longer fought in<br />
this way. 12
Horse-stabbers 135<br />
Caesar’s encounter with the Usipi horse-stabbers did not end there. The next day,<br />
when the leaders and elders of the Usipi and Tencteri came to him as ambassadors, he<br />
breached the rules of warfare by throwing them in fetters. He then slaughtered their<br />
leaderless people and afterwards offered to let the leaders go—into the hands of waiting,<br />
revenge-seeking Gauls. When the leaders pleaded to stay with him, Caesar agreed and<br />
granted them freedom. They then joined his army, for it was the custom that foes who<br />
asked for mercy to avoid slaughter bound themselves to their conqueror by strong bonds<br />
of obligation, a custom still known to Icelandic sagas. 13 Later that year, Caesar may have<br />
given his Usipi and Tencteri to Crassus to take them along to the Parthian war. 14<br />
Though Plutarch, when he speaks of Crassus’ western horsemen, does not set Germani<br />
off from Gauls and in the Greek manner calls both “Galatae,” 15 he says of them that in<br />
the battle at Carrhae in 53 BC “they wrought wonders of bravery. Many slid from their<br />
steeds, dove beneath their foes’ horses, and struck them in the underbelly. The beasts<br />
jumped with pain, and, dying, trampled riders and foes alike.” 16 The “Galatae” horsemen<br />
are likely to have included Usipi and Tencteri who dived beneath enemy horses at a time<br />
when Gauls no longer fought that way. 17<br />
In the Civil War in 48 BC at Dyrrachium, Caesar’s <strong>Germanic</strong> foot fought<br />
outstandingly well, counter-attacking against Pompey’s forces so that, alone of his<br />
foreign soldiers, Caesar praised them. 18 Shortly afterwards, at Pharsalus, they won the<br />
day for him. When Pompey’s horse, the flower of Rome’s aristocratic youth, came<br />
around Caesar’s right wing to attack him from behind, Caesar ambushed them with six<br />
cohorts of Germani, his 3,000 most daring foot taken from the third line—that is, from<br />
the reserves. They not only rushed Pompey’s horsemen and sent them fleeing, they went<br />
on to cut down the bowmen and slingers who had come along with the horsemen; then<br />
they took Pompey’s left wing in the rear, beginning the rout of his lines. 19<br />
About this attack Florus says: “the German cohorts attacked the dispersed horsemen as<br />
if they were on horseback and the others on foot.” 20 These cohorts are often mistaken for<br />
legionaries, 21 but the third line was the place to station lightly armed auxilia rather than<br />
legionaries. 22 Caesar himself praises the speed at which the men attacked, and speed is<br />
not a quality of heavily armed legionaries but, in Caesar’s own judgement, of <strong>Germanic</strong><br />
foot, and so is their skill in taking on horsemen. 23 Florus, who abridges Livy, likewise<br />
stresses the speed of these troops; he seems to be right, therefore, when he says that they<br />
were <strong>Germanic</strong> cohorts.<br />
The surprise attack of foot against horse at Pharsalus was a repeat of the battle fought<br />
by the Usipi and Tencteri in 55 BC, only Caesar had modified it by instructing the<br />
warriors to stab the faces of the horsemen rather than their legs and their steeds—aiming<br />
at a foeman’s face being the fiercest form of close-up fighting. 24 As the Thracians did in<br />
171 BC against Italic horsemen, running up to the enemy horse with great speed<br />
forestalled them from mounting a charge. It is one of the rare cases of foot advancing on<br />
horse and driving them off. 25<br />
In AD 15 Arminius and his Cheruscan followers fought the Romans by stabbing their<br />
horses:<br />
Arminius cried “There is Varus with the legions caught again by the same<br />
doom!” and with chosen followers he cut through the Roman column.<br />
They mainly wounded the horses who, slithering in the blood and the
<strong>Ancient</strong> <strong>Germanic</strong> warriors 136<br />
slippery mud, threw their riders, pushed everyone aside, and trampled<br />
over those who lay on the ground … Caecina, who upheld the front, fell to<br />
the ground as his horse was stabbed from below. He would have been<br />
surrounded had not the first legion stepped in. 26<br />
Stabbing horses from below is the work of warriors on foot. They could be dismounted<br />
horsemen like the Usipi and Tencteri in 55 BC, or foot trained to run with the horse, as<br />
were Ariovistus’ men in 58 BC and the Alamannic horse-stabbers in AD 357. 27 They<br />
could even be whole units of warriors on foot, as were the Thracians and Caesar’s men at<br />
Pharsalus.<br />
<strong>Germanic</strong> horse-stabbers on Roman gravestones<br />
On first-century Roman cavalry gravestones from the Rhineland, a naked <strong>Germanic</strong><br />
warrior with a straight sword often dives beneath the steed of his foe. As the horseman,<br />
spear in hand, rides over him, the warrior below raises his head between the horse’s legs<br />
and strikes the animal with his sword. 28<br />
On some gravestones the horseman rides over the stabber, looking not at him but straight<br />
ahead at what might come, seemingly heedless of the warrior underneath: scorning him<br />
and the danger he poses, he lets his steed kick the warrior in the head. Such a scene is<br />
shown on the gravestone of Romanius, found at Mainz in Upper Germany (Figure<br />
17.1). 29 The object above the head of Romanius’ foe has been called a shield, 30 but it is<br />
the man’s bent right arm, holding a sword hidden behind his head. The warrior on the<br />
ground is not fallen; rather, he has, of his own will and daring, dived beneath the horse to<br />
stab it from below. What has been overlooked so far is that for the sake of speed and<br />
nimbleness he has forgone the protection of a shield. To guard himself he has wrapped<br />
his coat several times around his left arm. Depicted on gravestones, this is a technique<br />
also known from literary sources as useful in skirmishes against horsemen. 31 In the sixth<br />
century young Heruls likewise fought naked without shields but with coats. They did so<br />
to achieve the famous Herulian battle-speed, and they too are likely to have wrapped their<br />
coat around the left arm for protection. 32
Horse-stabbers 137<br />
Figure 17.1 Horse-stabber underhoof.<br />
Gravestone of Romanius, Mainz.<br />
Rheinisches Landesmuseum, Mainz.<br />
Inv. S 601. Museum photograph.<br />
Another such gravestone, from east of the Rhine, is that of Dolanus (Figure 17.2). The<br />
naked warrior on the ground holds a sword in his right hand, ready to stab the steed, but<br />
Dolanus disregards him and looks straight ahead, no doubt toward a foe on horseback.<br />
Dolanus’ groom, with two spears, stands behind him, looking almost like a small figure
<strong>Ancient</strong> <strong>Germanic</strong> warriors 138<br />
on the horse’s back. Two lions growl above the scene. All these are things we will find<br />
again on medieval horse-stabber scenes.<br />
Figure 17.2 Another horse-stabber<br />
underhoof. Gravestone of Dolanus,<br />
Wiesbaden. Wiesbaden, CIL XIII<br />
7585=Schleiermacher,<br />
Reitergrabsteine 1984, 42. Museum<br />
photograph.
Horse-stabbers 139<br />
Greek gravestones, among them the highly visible and often copied Athenian<br />
gravestone of Dexileos of the fourth-century BC, provided the model for the Rhineland<br />
gravestone reliefs. They too portray the enemies naked, which raises the question of how<br />
far the Rhineland gravestones only repeat an artistic convention and how far they truly<br />
portray the fighting of their own time. 33 Three things point to the latter. First, literary<br />
sources report this fighting style in the Rhineland. Second, while Dexileos unrealistically<br />
wears only a shirt, horsemen on Rhenish gravestones wear carefully carved cuirasses of<br />
their time. Third, the coat wrapped around the arm to guard it is a trustworthy detail,<br />
known from other contemporary sources. The realism by which the Rhineland<br />
gravestones transform the original Dexileos model makes it likely that they depict the<br />
naked warrior beneath the horse also realistically and in a way that would convince<br />
onlookers who had seen this kind of fighting. 34<br />
There is more tension in these scenes than has been thought. Greeks and Romans liked<br />
to boast of their steeds trampling enemies, 35 but that is not the only reason for<br />
gravestones to show the warriors underhoof. The naked warriors, by their swords and<br />
fighting poses, suggest that in the mid-first century AD, as in the time of Caesar,<br />
<strong>Germanic</strong> horse-stabbers posed a serious threat to Roman horsemen. 36<br />
Tacitus in his Germania says about <strong>Germanic</strong> warriors:<br />
Overall, their strength lies more in their infantry, which is why they fight<br />
in mixed formation. The foot warriors chosen from the young men of the<br />
whole army and placed before the line are so fast they keep up with the<br />
horsemen in battle. Their number is fixed: one hundred from each district,<br />
and so they are called: what at first was a number is now a name and an<br />
honor. 37<br />
Romanius, Dolanus, and other Roman horsemen depicted on their grave-stones as<br />
looking ahead, reveal that the naked horse-stabbers beneath them fought together with<br />
horsemen and thus belong to Tacitus’ chosen youths of the “Hundred.”<br />
<strong>Ancient</strong> writers marveled at the bravery of horse-stabbers in Crassus’ war. Yet their<br />
fame was to rise still higher. When in AD 70 Roman forces fanned out from Mainz to<br />
reconquer Gaul and Germany west of the Rhine, Vespasian commemorated the campaign<br />
with coins on which he, like the horsemen on Mainz gravestones, rides down an enemy<br />
sword-fighter—a German if one may judge by his six-cornered shield. 38 The image of<br />
Vespasian as a heroic rider who fights a swordsman on foot also stems ultimately from<br />
the Athenian gravestone of Dexileos, but it seems to have reached Vespasian by way of<br />
gravestones from the Rhineland, where the heroic horse-stabber fighting style still lived.<br />
Vespasian, here realistically wielding a shield, may have chosen the scene after illustrated<br />
battle reports from Mainz. His pose became the model for a long series of imperial<br />
triumphal images, 39 almost the only Roman triumphal image in which the enemy truly<br />
fights back. The stout-hearted men who on foot dared to take on horsemen won fame not<br />
only at home but also on Roman gravestones and imperial coins. 40<br />
A third-century image of such a fight is seen on the gravestone of an imperial horse<br />
guardsman in Rome. 41 It portrays a long-haired, bearded, bare-chested, and trousered<br />
<strong>Germanic</strong> warrior who, while guarding himself with a shield, kneels between the forelegs<br />
of his foe’s cantering steed, trying to strike the beast (Figure 17.3).
<strong>Ancient</strong> <strong>Germanic</strong> warriors 140<br />
This is the most even-handed fight of all such scenes known. The warrior on the<br />
ground purposely bends his knee, and the horseman aims his lance at him. The<br />
guardsman may have met such foes in battle and wanted to show on his relief the real<br />
danger and hence the glory of such fights.<br />
Figure 17.3 Kneeling warrior, facing a<br />
horseman of the emperor’s guard.<br />
Gravestone, Rome. CIL VI 32803;<br />
Photograph B.Malter.<br />
On the late second-century Portonaccio sarcophagus from Rome, twelve <strong>Germanic</strong><br />
horsemen and four warriors on foot fight the same number of Romans. The Germani on<br />
foot are bare-chested. One is the horse-hewer on the lower right (Figure 18.2); another<br />
lies dead in the mid-foreground; a third, above in the middle, tries to flee together with<br />
three long-sleeved horsemen, all four having thrown away their blades. The fourth barechest<br />
is the horse-stabber on the lower left (Figure 17.4). 42<br />
Peerless in the precision with which it depicts fighting men, the sarcophagus shows<br />
this horse-stabber with his “horned” hairdo as he wields a very short spear, useful for
Horse-stabbers 141<br />
stabbing. 43 He wants to help the warrior above him by getting at the steed of the attacking<br />
Roman horseman but is brushed away<br />
Figure 17.4 Horse-stabber with a<br />
spear. Sarcophagus from Portonaccio,<br />
Rome. Photograph: German<br />
Archaeological Institute, Rome, Inst.<br />
Neg. 61.1399.
<strong>Ancient</strong> <strong>Germanic</strong> warriors 142<br />
by the horse’s hoofs. The four bare-chests, lightly clad so they could run with the<br />
horse, are clearly of the honored “Hundred” youths mentioned by Tacitus that are trained<br />
to fight with the horse. 44 The Portonaccio sarcophagus not only confirms Tacitus’<br />
information but also shows that the “Hundred” were bare-chested and had in their ranks<br />
horse-stabbers as well as hewers.<br />
Horse-stabbers in late antiquity<br />
Horse-stabbers are known not only from archaeological finds. 45 Literary sources describe<br />
them both in Caesar’s time and in late antiquity. Heliodore, in his novel Aethiopiaca,<br />
written around AD 250, imagines a battle where heavily mailed Persian catafracts ride a<br />
shock attack against onrushing Blemmye foot:<br />
When the Blemmyes came to blows and were about to be reached by the<br />
oncoming lance points, on a given sign they all together stooped and<br />
dived beneath the horses. One knee propped on the ground, barely<br />
keeping head and back from getting trampled, they did an astonishing<br />
thing: under the bellies as the horses rushed by, they wounded them,<br />
stabbing upwards with their swords. Through this, many horsemen fell to<br />
the ground, for the steeds, in their pain, would scorn the bridle and throw<br />
their riders. As they lay there like logs, the Blemmyes stabbed them in the<br />
thighs. 46<br />
Though he based his account on that of Plutarch, Heliodore added several sharp details of<br />
his own, like the stooping on one knee, as seen on the Chiusi urn, the horse-guard<br />
gravestone and the Portonaccio sarcophagus (Figures 17.3, 17.4). 47 Whether Heliodore<br />
knew this detail from written reports of his own time or saw it on imperial triumphal art,<br />
he singles out this fighting technique as the most astonishing and decisive in his imagined<br />
battle. 48<br />
In the West, in AD 357 at Strassburg, light Alamannic foot-warriors helped the<br />
Alamanni horsemen when they faced iron-clad Roman clibanarii horse. Sneaking<br />
towards the ranks of the Roman horse, the foot-warriors tried to stab the steeds.<br />
Ammianus says of them:<br />
They brought all their best cavalry in close order to the left wing and<br />
scattered between them light, fast infantry, with good reason. For they<br />
knew that even a skilled fighter on horseback, having to hold bridle and<br />
shield, and wielding the lance with but one hand, when meeting a<br />
Clibanarius horseman of ours could not harm the iron-clad warrior.<br />
However, as in the thick of a fight one watches only what comes straight<br />
on, a foot soldier could stealthily crawl up, pierce the side of the horse,<br />
bring the heedless rider down, and then easily kill him. 49<br />
Since Ammianus speaks of clibanarii locked in combat, the horse-stabbers who attacked<br />
them went against the front rank of the foes. To creep deeper into the enemy ranks, where
Horse-stabbers 143<br />
the horsemen’s attention was not so strongly engaged, would have been too risky. Even<br />
so, the heavy armor of the clibanarii, whom Rome brought to the West in the third<br />
century, rendered the task of horse-stabbers harder. Though the weight of the armor made<br />
the horsemen clumsier and thus easier to approach, the horses’ cuirass now reached to<br />
their knees and the riders’ mail to their toes, making it hard to stab or slash them. 50<br />
Nevertheless, at Strassburg Alamanni horsemen with their foot helpers routed the Roman<br />
clibanarii. 51<br />
In AD 363, Julian’s men, many of them from the Rhine, worsted a force of Persian<br />
clibanarii on the banks of the Tigris. Libanius says of them:<br />
The foot warrior dodged the lance of the horseman, ripped the horse open<br />
with his sword, brought both to the ground, and stabbed the iron-clad<br />
rider. 52<br />
The horse-stabber style of diving beneath the enemy’s horse had met the challenge of the<br />
clibanarii: against heavier armor they pitted even stouter hearts. Byzantine foot, often<br />
northerners, fought clibanarii in this way still in the tenth century. 53<br />
While imperial art understandably favored the rider who overcomes all, 54 to Libanius,<br />
as to Heliodore and Plutarch, horse-stabbing was the keenest kind of fighting. Those who<br />
dived beneath horses were, to the ancients, the bravest, the most skillful, and the most<br />
astonishing heroes. They were also forerunners of the heroes of medieval legend.<br />
Horse-stabbers in the Middle Ages<br />
A gold foil from about AD 600 found at Pliezhausen in Alamannia shows a spearwielding<br />
horseman riding over a warrior who stabs his steed from below. Once part of a<br />
warrior’s gear, the foil was later reworked into a disc brooch (Figure 17.5). 55<br />
Beneath two lions that face one another, the horseman rides straight ahead, a shield in<br />
his right hand and a long lance in his left either for throwing or stabbing. 56 The blade of<br />
the lance ends in an eagle’s or a bird-dragon’s head. 57 Dancing on the horse’s back is a<br />
smaller figure, also with a shield and holding on to the lance. Below, gripping the bridle,<br />
the foe rises between the horse’s forelegs and stabs the steed in the chest.<br />
Although made in Alamannia, 58 the Pliezhausen disc was thought to derive from<br />
triumphal images of Roman emperors and Byzantine saints. 59 Yet given the striking<br />
similarity, the Pliezhausen scene certainly stems from Roman gravestones along the<br />
Rhine, many of which in the sixth century still stood on the roads just outside Mainz,<br />
Worms, Wiesbaden, and other towns. 60
<strong>Ancient</strong> <strong>Germanic</strong> warriors 144<br />
Figure 17.5 Sixth-century horsestabber.<br />
Disc brooch from Pliezhausen,<br />
Baden-Württemberg.<br />
Wiirttembergisches Landesmuseum,<br />
Stuttgart, inc. 29/173. Drawing by P.<br />
Paulsen after Hauck, “Adelskultur”<br />
1957.<br />
Only gravestones display all elements of the scene: the spear-wielding horseman, the<br />
swordsman underneath, the smaller figure further back “on” the horse, and the lions<br />
above (Figure 17.2). 61 On both kinds of monuments the horseman’s spear points not to<br />
the man on the ground but further ahead. Like Romanius and Dolanus on their<br />
gravestones, the Pliezhausen rider pays no attention to the stabber: he looks straight<br />
ahead toward a foe that is not seen here, but whom other foils show as stabbed by the<br />
lance. 62 Neither the gravestones nor the Pliezhausen foil portray the fight itself, instead<br />
they show the risk the horseman runs.<br />
This image appealed throughout the <strong>Germanic</strong> world. Metal foils on seventh-century<br />
helmets from Sutton Hoo in Kent and from Vendel and Valsgärde in Uppland, Sweden,<br />
portray the same scene. 63 These foils, too, are modeled after gravestones from the
Horse-stabbers 145<br />
Rhineland or, more likely, after Alamannic metal foils such as the Pliezhausen one. 64<br />
Further proof that the horse-stabber scene originated on the Rhine is the fact that most<br />
variations of it in the Swedish foils are also found on first- to fourth-century Rhenish<br />
gravestones. Thus on bronze foils from Valsgärde, not one but two foes threaten the rider<br />
from below, 65 just like on a gravestone from Worms. 66 Likewise on the Valsgärde foils<br />
(but not on that from Pliezhausen) the horseman’s helper holds his own spear, as on the<br />
gravestones (Figures 17.1, 17.2). On some of the Valsgärde foils, the foe on the ground<br />
does not stab the horse but strikes at it with his sword-arm bent back, 67 again as on the<br />
gravestones. On some foils a groom holds the horse by the bridle as he does on Rhenish<br />
gravestones. 68<br />
Finally, the Pliezhausen scene (aside from the lions) and the Swedish ones are square<br />
like gravestone reliefs, not round like coins, their supposed models. 69 The scenes on the<br />
foils are therefore not of Coptic or Byzantine inspiration, but modeled by sixth-century<br />
Alamannic artists after images on Roman gravestones around Mainz and Wiesbaden. 70<br />
The die with which the Pliezhausen disc was made could well have served for making<br />
helmet foils, as its size (5.5×5.4 cm) is that of helmet-foil images. 71 The round embossed<br />
border was certainly not part of the original design, for, touching the scene at the top, it<br />
leaves a large empty space at the bottom. 72<br />
All three warriors in the scene hold their weapons in their left hand, which suggests<br />
that the design is a mirror image of its original. Scholars therefore thought that the<br />
Pliezhausen scene had been designed for the phalerae discs of a horse harness, where a<br />
left and a right image is required. 73 Yet this is unlikely, for the horse-stabber motif is<br />
known only from helmets, not from phalerae, and has its corresponding mirror-image on<br />
helmets. 74 Moreover, the size of the Pliezhausen scene fits helmet decorations better,<br />
being rather too small for phalerae. 75<br />
The likelihood that the Gutenstein wolf-warrior scenes were also designed for Vendelhelmet<br />
foils and that the horse-stabber image comes from grave-stones along the Rhine<br />
suggests that the system of Vendel-helmet imagery, and indeed some helmets, reached<br />
Sweden from Alamannia. 76 The contacts between heathen Alamannia and the <strong>Germanic</strong><br />
north and their shared sixth-and seventh-century heathen culture thus appear in a new<br />
light. Alamannia was a leader among the lands of native <strong>Germanic</strong> culture that fended off<br />
Christianity, wrote runes, and upheld the worship of Woden. 77<br />
From first-century gravestones at Mainz to the sixth-century Pliezhausen disc, the<br />
horse-stabber scene underwent an astonishingly profound change in meaning with only<br />
the slightest change in design. The Roman horseman, who glories in winning and in<br />
trampling his foe, becomes the <strong>Germanic</strong> hero, who glories in fearlessness and welcomes<br />
his fate (wyrd), even if it means being felled by the foe below. 78 The change in design,<br />
although small, is significant: on the Roman gravestones, the warrior beneath the horse is<br />
not yet put out of action, but his strike will go amiss; on the <strong>Germanic</strong> pictures, he has<br />
struck home and the rider must fall. 79<br />
Wearing the dragon helmet, the god who dances on the horse behind the rider is either<br />
Woden himself or one of the Dioscuri in Woden’s role as war dancer. He pushes the<br />
lance, not to save the rider from falling, nor to bring him victory. His role is to egg the<br />
warriors on, to give them vtrtus or fighting madness, and he does this, here as elsewhere,<br />
by dancing the war dance. 80
<strong>Ancient</strong> <strong>Germanic</strong> warriors 146<br />
Though he is a tool of fate, the horse-stabber is not an opponent of Woden. Even the<br />
riders would see it that way, for according to Snorri Sturluson the Swedes thought that<br />
Woden “often appeared before great battles, gave victory to some, and bade others to<br />
come to his place. Both fates seemed good to them.” 81 Accordingly, the horse-stabber is<br />
not reviled. 82 He wears the kaftan-like coat of noble warriors, and care is taken to show<br />
him unharmed. 83 Indeed he is neither fallen nor overcome. 84 He bravely fights as an elite<br />
warrior in the horse-stabber style, and his fate is as undecided as that of the rider. He too<br />
is a hero.<br />
The horsemen on Roman gravestones in Mainz were foreigners, 85 the warriors beneath<br />
them <strong>Germanic</strong> tribesmen. The Alamanni who adopted the horse-stabbing image still<br />
practiced that warrior style in the fourth century at Strassburg, and hence very likely in<br />
the sixth century as well. They may thus have felt akin not only to the horseman but also<br />
to the warrior beneath the horse. For many hundred years those who dived beneath horses<br />
had amazed Greeks and Romans with their daring deed. 86 Surely <strong>Germanic</strong> warriors<br />
honored them as well.<br />
Reworking the Roman image into a <strong>Germanic</strong> one, the artist gave the horseman a<br />
heavy lance to be carried on or above the shoulder, unlike the downward-pointing, much<br />
lighter Roman spear. 87 Since this implies a degree of realism—as does the horse’s canter,<br />
unlike the overly heroic Roman gallop—one may infer that during the sixth century elite<br />
warriors still dived beneath enemy horses. By the eleventh-century, when the Norwegian<br />
“Mirror for Kings” warns against wounding horses, stabbing steeds may have been<br />
thought low-class, 88 but in the sixth and seventh centuries <strong>Germanic</strong> warriors still saw<br />
horse-stabbers as heroes.<br />
Alamannic artists thus transposed Roman gravestone art into a portable medium and<br />
flowing lines, and at the same time changed a Roman image of heroism into a truly<br />
<strong>Germanic</strong> one. Nearness of these images to real life will have helped. The artistic<br />
achievement matches the transformation, at about the same time, of a Constantinian<br />
victory coin into Woden’s image on Nordic bracteate amulets. 89<br />
We have come to the gate of heroic myth. We dare not enter, for our sources are too<br />
scanty. Still, a glance through the gate, so to speak, makes one wonder why in the North<br />
dragons are so often killed with a sword and from underneath. 90 In the battle at Strassburg<br />
the Alamanni routed the Roman clibanarii and their dragon standards, slaying dragons<br />
like the heroes of Indo-European myth. Doing this with the sword and from below, 91<br />
horse-stabbers may have become the model for Sigmund the dragon-slayer. 92
18<br />
HORSE-HEWERS<br />
With them the horsemen went into battle, to them they<br />
could withdraw, and from them they got help in their<br />
harder tasks.<br />
Caesar, Gallic War<br />
Indo-European horse-hewers<br />
Horse-hewers differed from horse-stabbers in that they used curved weapons. With<br />
curved swords, dirks, or cleavers they hewed at the steeds of horsemen who were caught<br />
up in fighting other men. Herodotus tells of such a fight by Onesilos and his squire during<br />
the Persian War on Cyprus in 498 BC:<br />
Onesilos took his post over against the Persian general Artybios. Now<br />
Artybios rode a horse trained to rear up against foot soldiers. When<br />
Onesilos learned this, he said to his shield bearer, a Carian, well-skilled in<br />
war and full of daring: “I hear that Artybios rides a horse that rears up and<br />
with fore-legs and teeth attacks the man against whom his rider urges him.<br />
Think it over now and tell me whom you want to encounter, the steed or<br />
Artybios himself.” The squire answered: “I am willing, my prince, to do<br />
either or both, whatever you say, but I will tell you what to me seems best<br />
for you. Since you are a prince and a field marshal you ought to face the<br />
prince and field marshal. Leave it to us followers to face the other<br />
followers and the horse. Fear not the horse’s tricks, I promise you it will<br />
not rear up against anyone anymore.” … When Artybios on his horse<br />
charged Onesilos, the latter, as he had agreed with his shield bearer, struck<br />
at the onrushing foe. The horse put his forefeet on Onesilos’ shield, but<br />
the Carian hit it with a curved sword and cut off the horse’s feet. Artybios<br />
the Persian field marshal and his horse fell right there. 1<br />
Thracians, as we have seen, fought with the same technique of using curved swords<br />
against enemy horse. To help a friend in battle by hewing at his foe’s<br />
horse was no doubt a warrior style as old as cavalry itself. It called for awesome skill<br />
and daring since short, inward-curved weapons, though good for horse-hewing, are not<br />
otherwise very useful in battle. 2<br />
Modern onlookers understandably frown upon such cruelty to animals, but Herodotus<br />
makes it clear that the Persian horse, as it kicked and bit, was as frightful an enemy as its<br />
rider and had to be dealt with. A look at Romanius’ horse (Figure 17.1) shows that it too<br />
kicks the warrior underneath in the head.
<strong>Ancient</strong> <strong>Germanic</strong> warriors 148<br />
<strong>Germanic</strong> horse-hewers in antiquity<br />
<strong>Germanic</strong> forces often fought as foot and horse together. As early as 168 BC, 10,000<br />
Bastarnae horse and as many foot came from the lower Danube as mercenaries to King<br />
Perseus of Macedonia. The foot, we are told, ran as fast as the horse rode, and when a<br />
horseman fell in battle, a footman took his steed. 3<br />
Similarly, in 58 BC, Caesar tells of <strong>Germanic</strong> horsemen relying on their squires:<br />
This was the kind of fighting for which the Germani had trained. There<br />
were six thousand horsemen who had chosen as many very fast and strong<br />
foot, one each for his own safety. With them they went into battle, to them<br />
they could withdraw, and from them they got help in their harder tasks. If<br />
a rider fell wounded from his horse, they shielded him. For riding farther<br />
or getting away faster, the foot were trained to match the speed of the<br />
horses by holding on to their manes. 4<br />
Caesar found such men useful and hired them against the Gauls. Tacitus adds that each<br />
<strong>Germanic</strong> clan had a hundred young foot warriors to fight along with the horse. 5 They<br />
could keep up with the horse because it charged, as we have seen, not at a full gallop but<br />
at a canter.<br />
Like Onesilos or the Thracians, these foot warriors among the horse may have wielded<br />
curved swords. In the North, curved blades suitable to cut flesh or tendons with a pulling<br />
stroke are known, it seems, as early as 350 BC: three of them came to light at Hjortspring<br />
in Denmark, with blades 57, 53, and 35 cm long. 6 Unfit for fencing, they must have been<br />
used together with other weapons such as a straight sword, 7 or to help a fully equipped<br />
team mate.<br />
From the first century AD, quite a few <strong>Germanic</strong> curved swords are known. A coin of<br />
the Hermunduri in Bavaria from the beginning of our era depicts a warrior with two short<br />
curved swords. A similar sword or dirk, made of wood and with a blade about 30 cm<br />
long, came to light in the camp of Drusus the Elder at Oberaden in Westphalia (11–8<br />
BC). 8 Another appears on Caligula’s silver disc from Niederbieber, and a curved weapon<br />
like the one from Oberaden is depicted on a late first-century cavalryman’s grave at<br />
Arlon in Belgium. 9 Curved daggers or swords are portrayed also on a weapon-relief from<br />
the Flavian Armilustrium temple in Rome; 10 captured from Rome’s foes, they too point to<br />
the curved sword as a northern European weapon.<br />
From the Rhine frontier comes the curved sword on Andes’ headstone in Mainz.<br />
Andes’ foe sprawls on the ground, clinging to his weapon (Figure 18.1). 11 With his long,<br />
pointed beard and thick crown of hair, the man is a crack Chattian warrior like those<br />
described in the next chapter. His weapon, being bent rather sharply halfway up the<br />
blade, recalls one of the Hjortspring blades. 12 The long-haired warrior raises his sword<br />
not against Andes himself but, like Onesilos’ Carian, slashes at the feet of Andes’ horse.<br />
He is bare-chested, wearing only tight, ankle-length trousers, allowing him to be quick<br />
and nimble in attacking the enemy’s horse from below.
Horse-hewers 149<br />
Figure 18.1 Long-haired Chattian<br />
warrior with curved sword. Gravestone<br />
of Andes, Mainz. Photograph<br />
Landesmuseum Mainz, S 608.<br />
A curved sword could hew off the leg of a horse, or rip open its side as it rushed by.<br />
Wherever it hit, the sword would deal a wound that brought the rider down. To judge<br />
from their gravestones, Roman horsemen saw horse-stabbers and hewers as dangerous<br />
and took pride in riding over them.<br />
Trajan’s Column shows no foes fighting on horseback and hence no horse-hewers. 13 In<br />
the later second-century, however, the Portonaccio sarcophagus, found in Rome, shows a<br />
horse-hewer: in the exquisitely carved relief he wields a curved sword or cleaver but has<br />
fallen to the ground (Figure 18.2). 14
<strong>Ancient</strong> <strong>Germanic</strong> warriors 150<br />
The horse-stabber and hewer are bare-chested so as to be nimble and fast. 15 The horsehewer<br />
does not even have a shield: like horse-stabbers on Rhenish gravestones (Figure<br />
17.1), he has only a thin coat or skin wrapped around his arm to guard him against<br />
blows. 16<br />
Figure 18.2 Horse-hewer with curved<br />
weapon. Sarcophagus from<br />
Portonaccio, Rome. Photo: Deutsches<br />
Archäeologisches Institut Rome, Inst.<br />
Neg. 61.1399.
Horse-hewers 151<br />
Done in the style of the Aurelian Column, the Portonaccio sarcophagus dates to the<br />
last third of the second century. As no wars raged along the Rhine at that time, the relief<br />
must depict a battle against Danubian Germani. 17 This fits well with a find from the<br />
legionary fortress at Enns (Lauriacum) on the Danube, where a miniature curved bronze<br />
sword or cleaver of the late second century has come to light. Only 5 cm long, it looks<br />
much like the weapon on the Portonaccio sarcophagus (Figure 18.2).<br />
Roman soldiers had no weapons of this shape. However, since bronze miniatures are<br />
typically put into graves of <strong>Germanic</strong> warriors, or worn by their women, the Enns bronze<br />
cleaver very likely betokens the honored weapon of a warrior. 18 Having yielded other<br />
northern warrior gear, such as a bronze guard for a horse’s head, 19 the legionary fortress<br />
of Enns seems to have housed an auxiliary troop of <strong>Germanic</strong> tribal horse and foot from<br />
beyond the Danube.<br />
The curved “cleavers” of the Portonaccio sarcophagus and the Enns fortress belong to<br />
the Danubian frontier. So does the famous find from Káloz near Intercisa in Pannonia,<br />
where in a second-century twin grave two warriors were buried together with a horse.<br />
The richer warrior owned a shield with a bronze buckle and rim, a straight sword, and a<br />
lance; the poorer one had a shield with an iron buckle, a curved sword, and an ax as<br />
shown in Figure 18.4.<br />
Since bronze-decorated weapons distinguished leaders from followers, 20 the horse<br />
must have belonged to a leader, the curved sword to his squire. Both must have been<br />
killed in the same battle or struck down by the same sickness. 21<br />
Figure 18.3 Miniature bronze weapon<br />
from Enns, Oberösterreich. Found in<br />
1982 by Robert Binder, Parzelle 1132;<br />
R. VII, 1131; inv. 84, 1982; drawing:<br />
Mok, 1996. I owe knowledge of this<br />
piece to my friend Hanns Ubl.
<strong>Ancient</strong> <strong>Germanic</strong> warriors 152<br />
Figure 18.4 Weapons of the squire.<br />
Twin grave at Káloz, Hungary.<br />
Drawing after Böhme, Zeugnisse 1975,<br />
181.<br />
The curved sword from Káloz with its iron hilt is 55 cm long, slightly longer than the<br />
wooden sword from Oberaden but shorter than some from Hjortspring. Like the sword on<br />
the Niederbieber disc and those from Hjortspring, the back of the blade is strengthened<br />
and straightens near the tip where it becomes double-edged to make it useful for stabbing<br />
as well. Although it has been said that <strong>Germanic</strong> mixed horse–foot formations did not<br />
give rise to special weapons, 22 horse-hewers indeed used a special weapon: the curved<br />
sword.
Horse-hewers 153<br />
Herodotus’ story of Onesilos points to the Káloz twin grave as the burial of a lordly<br />
horseman and a squire, who with his curved sword helped his master to fight enemy<br />
horsemen. <strong>Germanic</strong> horsemen, according to Caesar, usually had squires, but he does not<br />
say whether these fought with swords or spears. 23 The twin grave of Káloz is therefore<br />
particularly welcome as archaeological evidence that squires still used curved swords by<br />
the end of the second century and as confirmation for Caesar’s report about the one-toone<br />
relationship between horseman and squire. 24<br />
According to Tacitus the foot warriors who went along with the horse fought at the<br />
forefront. Very likely they are the naked hewers with curved swords seen beneath Roman<br />
horsemen on their gravestones (Figures 18.1, 18.2). Caesar says that they fought as<br />
squires of individual horsemen. Tacitus must be right when he says that the foot running<br />
with the horse were young, for only the young can keep up with horses at a canter. Their<br />
being young also suggests that the “hundred” runners were squires. Their fighting jointly<br />
with a horseman thus foreshadows the working together of knights and squires during the<br />
Middle Ages. 25
Part 8<br />
OUTSTANDING<br />
WARRIORS
19<br />
LONG-HAIRS<br />
They begin all battles and always fight in front.<br />
Tacitus, Germania<br />
Indo-European long-hairs<br />
One of the warrior’s most striking means to awe his foes was his hair. Long hair alone<br />
did not mark a specific warrior style, for most Indo-European warriors wore long hair,<br />
but hair styles mattered—Celts alone had nine different ones. Indian, Iranian, Greek,<br />
Celtic, Italic and <strong>Germanic</strong> warriors wore their hair long, and Spartans claimed that long<br />
hair made them more handsome—or more frightening. 1<br />
Shaking one’s long tresses unnerved foes. Thor as well as Indra shook their hair when<br />
angry. Lusitani, who fought the Romans in Spain in the mid-second century BC, “shook<br />
their hair against the enemy.” 2 Of the Alamanni, Ammianus says: “As they raged even<br />
more than usual their flowing hair looked dreadful, and madness shone in their eyes.” 3<br />
Goths, too, shook their hair in defiance, and so did <strong>Germanic</strong> guardsmen in fourthcentury<br />
Byzantium. 4 Iormunrekkr in the ninth-century Hamðismál shakes his hair as he<br />
grows battle-mad. 5<br />
Well-kempt hair, however, also was an ideal of Indo-European warriors, and, as long<br />
hair might be a bother in battle, many tied up their hair before a fight, a custom best<br />
known, perhaps, from Herodotus’ account of the Spartans at Thermopylae, who, while<br />
waiting for the attack, combed their hair. Tukulti-Ninurta’s berserks bound up their hair;<br />
Thracians bound theirs into a topknot; and mountain Lusitani gathered their hair,<br />
womanish long, on the forehead. 6<br />
Chatti long-hairs<br />
Among the Chatti on the middle Rhine, elite warriors identified themselves by their long<br />
hair. Their hairstyle matters, for it links the evidence in Tacitus’ written account with that<br />
from Roman gravestones in a way that they confirm each other. Reflecting perhaps the<br />
first-hand observations of Pliny the Elder in his <strong>Germanic</strong> Wars, 7 Tacitus writes as<br />
follows:<br />
A custom, seldom taken up among other <strong>Germanic</strong> peoples through a<br />
man’s own daring, has among the Chatti become the rule: to let hair and<br />
beard grow long when they have come of age, and not to free the face of
Long-hairs 157<br />
its growth—vowed and pledged to valour—before they have slain an<br />
enemy. Over the blood and spoils they bare the brow. “Now at last,” they<br />
cry, “we have paid the price of birth and shown ourselves worthy of<br />
country and parents.” The coward and the shirker stay unkempt. The<br />
bravest also wear an iron ring (which is considered shameful) like a fetter,<br />
until they free themselves by killing a foe. Many Chatti like this look, and<br />
as their hair turns white, they are a mark of note for friend and foe alike.<br />
They begin all battles and always fight in front, a startling sight, for even<br />
in peace they do not soften their looks. None of them has home, land, or<br />
business of his own. To whatever host they choose to go, they get their<br />
keep from him, wasting the goods of others while despising their own,<br />
until weak old age makes them unfit for such hardy manhood. 8<br />
These words have been misunderstood. Scholars have taken Tacitus’ phrases “to free the<br />
face” and “to bare the brow” to mean cutting off one’s hair. 9 Yet this is not what Tacitus<br />
says. When a Chattian warrior killed a foe, he shed the looks of his face (habitus oris)<br />
and unveiled his forehead (frontem). The habitus oris thus shed was the hair hanging over<br />
the forehead and face, not the full, long hair in the back, nor the beard. By contrast, the<br />
squalor that stayed with one who had yet to slay an enemy consisted of having hair all<br />
over his face. One who had killed a foe thus bared his forehead by binding his combed<br />
hair with a band, as Indo-European and <strong>Germanic</strong> warriors often did. 10 To keep his stern<br />
warrior look (the habitus of long hair that Chatti warriors liked), a man might let his hair<br />
grow uncut until old age, using a hairband to keep his forehead free. 11<br />
The roof-tile antefixes of the shrine at the fortress of legio XI Claudia in Vindonissa<br />
seem to portray such Chatti warriors. During the legion’s stay at Vindonissa from AD 69<br />
to 101, its main feat was fighting in Domitian’s Chattian war of AD 83. When Domitian<br />
held his triumph, the legion also celebrated, highlighting its deeds on roof tiles at its<br />
headquarters. 12 One of these tiles shows a young man with unkempt hair, untrimmed<br />
beard, and without a hairband, 13 which may portray the hair squalor of a Chatti warrior<br />
who has not yet killed a foe. Another tile from the same shrine depicts an older, bearded,<br />
very long-haired warrior with a hairband, 14 whose hair falls in long tresses down to his<br />
shoulders but whose throat, unlike that of the young warrior on the first tile, is shaved. 15<br />
He may be a long-hair warrior of the Chatti who, having killed a foe, rid himself of<br />
squalor by freeing his forehead with a hairband, while letting the rest of his hair grow<br />
freely.<br />
If the Chatti long-hairs did indeed free their foreheads with the help of hairbands, a<br />
long-standing problem with Tacitus’ passage is solved, for in this way elite warriors with<br />
uncut hair looked different from the unproven and cowards, and the manuscript text<br />
makes sense as it stands. 16 Tacitus, it seems, did not mistake the hairstyle of leading<br />
Chatti for that of unproven warriors, nor did he give in to an overweening wish to make<br />
“sense” of his “ethnographic material”. 17 By setting off the squalor of the unproven<br />
Chattian warrior from that of the freed forehead of his proven counterpart, Tacitus<br />
presents an understandable and meaningful, if curt, account.<br />
Confirmation of this reading comes from Roman military gravestones in the Rhineland<br />
that portray long-haired enemy warriors. Andes’ headstone in Mainz, for instance, shows<br />
a sprawling warrior clinging to a curved sword (see Figure 18.1). 18 Some of the warrior’s
<strong>Ancient</strong> <strong>Germanic</strong> warriors 158<br />
hair falls over his forehead, but most of it is gathered on top of his head where it rises<br />
high and then flows backward in a long pony tail. While the band that holds his hair is<br />
hard to see, its place and effect are unmistakable. 19 With his long, pointed beard, daring<br />
the foe to grab it, and with his thick crown of hair, Andes’ foe is a crack warrior like<br />
those described by Tacitus. At the same time he is also one of the lightly clad, daring<br />
horse-hewers we have studied in the previous chapter. 20<br />
The gravestone of Carminius Ingenuus at Worms too depicts a long-haired warrior<br />
(Figure 19.1). 21 Again, the foe on the ground has his hair gathered on top of his head.<br />
Bound with a hairband, it streams in a long tail down his back. Thus bearded and longhaired,<br />
he too may be a Chattian warrior who, having freed his forehead when he first<br />
killed a foe, now lets his hair grow long. A third long-haired tribal warrior rears his head<br />
on a grave monument from Koblenz. 22 He seems to lack a pointed beard, but his hair is<br />
also gathered on top in a pony tail, and, as on other gravestones, his hairband is marked<br />
by a carved line around the head. 23 A fourth such warrior has come to light at Bartringen<br />
in Luxemburg. Like the Koblenz relief, the Bartringen one comes from a large,<br />
sculptured grave monument built for a Roman horseman in the mid-first century AD. It<br />
depicts a bare-chested warrior lying on the ground amid scattered weapons. He has been<br />
called “a dying Gaul,” 24 but he is neither dying nor a Gaul. Gauls by this time had long<br />
been conquered and were subjects, not enemies. The man’s hands are fettered on his<br />
back, and his head is comforted by a woman. 23 On his hip hangs a scabbard, worn on a<br />
strap coming down from his belt; a trustworthy detail, for scabbards hung in this manner<br />
are seen also on other grave monuments and on Trajan’s Column. 26 The find-spot in<br />
Luxemburg is beyond the Chatti frontier, and indeed, there is no telling whether the<br />
prisoner belongs to the Chatti or is from another tribe whose men, as Tacitus says,<br />
followed the Chatti custom. 27 Be that as it may, this and other <strong>Germanic</strong> warriors seen<br />
with long hair on sundry reliefs from the late first century on the Chatti frontier fit well<br />
with Tacitus’ account of the Chatti, and may be from that state. 28 But not all Chatti<br />
warriors, Tacitus noted, kept their hair long, and indeed some Germani depicted on<br />
gravestones in the region wear their hair short (Figure 17.1).<br />
Grave reliefs carved for the glory of Roman soldiers who overcame tribal warriors had<br />
to tell their tale believably. Standing along the roadways leading out from towns, they<br />
needed to convince onlookers and thus had to depict native warriors somewhat<br />
realistically. 29 They thus constitute independent evidence for Tacitus’ account of the<br />
long-haired Chatti. 30<br />
<strong>Warriors</strong> world-wide have treated unproven youths as unworthy of honor, 31 a fact that<br />
lends weight to Tacitus’ report of that practice among the Chatti. Such treatment of the<br />
less accomplished, coming from the warriors’ natural desire to be admired and emulated,<br />
goaded the unproven to do all they could to throw off their shame, as did, for example,<br />
young Aztec warriors, forbidden to cut their long nape locks before they overcame a<br />
foe. 32
Long-hairs 159<br />
Figure 19.1 Long-haired tribal warrior.<br />
Gravestone of Carminius Ingenuus,<br />
Worms. Photo: Stadtarchiv Worms,<br />
Neg. M 9179c; CIL XIII, 6233.<br />
Chatti saw themselves as hair-men. Of the two meanings of their name recognized in<br />
modern scholarship, hat-men and hair-men, the latter is more likely to be true, as<br />
gravestones along the frontier show them so strikingly long-haired. 33 If their name does<br />
indeed mean “hair-men,” Tacitus was right to focus on their hairstyle. 34 Though he<br />
followed age-worn ethnographic concepts, 35 he nevertheless reported what was most<br />
striking about them and what mattered most to the men themselves. In the case of the<br />
Chatti it was their long-haired warrior style. 36 That is no less true even if Tacitus focused<br />
on the Chatti because they resembled the idealized type of the Italic farmer-soldier. 37
<strong>Ancient</strong> <strong>Germanic</strong> warriors 160<br />
It was a fighting style not only for the Chatti. Other Germani too, Tacitus says,<br />
sometimes adopted Chatti hairstyles. The most famous of these is Civilis, leader of the<br />
Batavian uprising against Rome, who vowed to let his hair grow over his forehead until<br />
he overcame the legions. 38 This is the more understandable, as the Batavi were close<br />
relatives of the Chatti. 39<br />
Suebi tied their hair into a knot at the side or on top of the head. So did Franks, whose<br />
kings in peacetime let their long hair down, parted in the middle, but before going to<br />
battle braided and knotted it on the side of the head. In Danish legend he who unknots his<br />
hair is a fighter no more. 40 When Chatti warriors, freeing their foreheads, bound their hair<br />
with a hairband, they did much the same thing that long-haired warriors did<br />
everywhere. 41 Scholars have often seen long-haired Chatti warriors as forerunners of the<br />
Nordic berserks. 42 Both were attention-getting, professional warriors who began all<br />
battles, which makes such a link indeed likely. To be sure, neither does Tacitus describe<br />
the Chatti as mad fighters, nor are Nordic berserks said to have uncommonly long hair.<br />
However, the fact that some Chatti long-hairs fought naked suggests that they fought like<br />
berserks, madly and without armor.<br />
Tacitus calls the deity to whom the long-hairs are beholden “Virtus.” This may be<br />
Woden, the god of the berserks, for he was the one to give men virtus and battlemadness.<br />
43 Another shared custom of long-hairs and berserks, the wearing of rings,<br />
points in the same direction. It has been overlooked, so far, that Nordic berserks also<br />
wore rings, which they did “so they could strike stronger and cause a bitter wound.” 44<br />
Rings mark a bond, above all that of belonging to a warband. Since in the case of<br />
berserks this is Woden’s warband, the same may be true for long-hairs. 45<br />
World-wide comparisons of primitive warriors and disciplined soldiers suggests that<br />
to fight a war rather than only battles, societies need a well-established government. 46<br />
The Chatti, of whom Tacitus says in so many words that they alone go to war while<br />
others go to battle, should therefore have had a relatively efficient state “government.”<br />
Hence when long-hairs came to other Chatti as guests, they did so not by dint of threat<br />
but, like the comparable Irish fíanna, by acknowledged, and no doubt religiously<br />
underpinned law. 47 Where kings ruled, as in the Nordic Middle Ages, berserks lived as<br />
champions of kings. 48 Among the Chatti, who had no kings, long-hairs would have lived<br />
as guests or retainers of local leaders, who, as the Icelandic Eyrbyggja saga suggests,<br />
were glad for the backing of such men in their never-ending quarrels. 49 The same saga<br />
says that berserks had no property of their own—like Chatti long-hairs.<br />
The looks of Chatti long-hairs told their foes that they faced fierce, strong, and skillful<br />
fighters. Their vaunted hairdo, a sign of battle prowess, struck fear in the enemy’s heart.<br />
Tacitus understood the meaning of warrior styles well when he said that “the first to lose<br />
in all battles are the eyes.” 50<br />
Long-hairs in the Middle Ages<br />
While Rome asked her <strong>Germanic</strong> warriors to cut their hair, 51 free Germani looked at long<br />
hair as a sign of honor and outstanding warriordom. They wore it so long that for the<br />
battle at Strassburg in AD 357, King Chnodomar of the Alamanni had to wind a round,
Long-hairs 161<br />
gold-embroidered band into his hair. So too did Harald Wartooth, legendary king of<br />
Denmark, and other Viking rulers. 52<br />
Seventh-century Bavarian warrior masks with lined squares above and below the face<br />
may represent long-hair warriors (Figure 11.4). If so, long-hairs were a warrior style like<br />
wolf-warriors shown on similar masks. If it is true that long-hairs continued as berserks,<br />
their style still flourished in the high Middle Ages.<br />
Though different from well-combed long hair, the symbolism of unkempt hair too<br />
lived on into the Middle Ages. In AD 574, 6,000 Saxon warriors vowed not to cut hair or<br />
beard until they avenged themselves on their enemy, the Suebi. 53 Likewise, in the tenth<br />
century, Harold Fairhair was Harold Unkempt until he conquered all of Norway. 54 Long<br />
and unkempt hair marked different warrior styles, yet both can be traced from antiquity to<br />
the Middle Ages.
20<br />
HELMET-WEARERS<br />
A head-guard along the helmet’s roof, with wires wound<br />
round, guarded the outside so that a sword could not harm<br />
him.<br />
Beowulf<br />
Crossband helmets of Trajan’s Column and Vendel helmets<br />
Indo-European battle lords stood out for their bronze or gold helmets. The Vedic Marut<br />
warband wore such helmets, Scythian leaders of the fourth century BC strutted in golden<br />
open-work headgear, and Celtic chieftains likewise wore gold-gleaming helmets. 1 From<br />
Denmark’s Bronze Age warriors, forebears of the <strong>Germanic</strong>, come the splendid<br />
ceremonial helmets of Viksø with their cast-on crossbands that make them forerunners of<br />
the helmets discussed in this chapter. 2<br />
Little is known, however, of early <strong>Germanic</strong> helmets. <strong>Ancient</strong> writers say that some<br />
warriors wore helmets, but aside from two first-century reworked Roman helmets (Figure<br />
14.1), no <strong>Germanic</strong> helmets from antiquity have come to light yet. 3 Trajan’s Column<br />
makes up for this lack. Four of the “irregulars” in the emperor’s strike force in scene 36<br />
wear helmets of a nonRoman type. Consisting of browband, fore-to-aft band, and ear-toear<br />
band, and held in place by a chin strap, they may be called crossband helmets (Figure<br />
20.1). 4 The angular shape of the bands indicates that they were made of metal.<br />
Unlike other helmets on the Column, those here sit so high on the head that, from<br />
forehead to neck, strands of hair curl out below them. Between the bands, locks of hair<br />
also appear, and since these look much like the hair below the helmet, they seem to be the<br />
wearer’s own hair, not the metal imitation of hair or the wig found on some Roman army<br />
helmets. 5 Half-circle buckles rather than Roman hinges fasten the cheek straps to the<br />
browband. 6 The decorative lines along the edges of the ear-to-ear band are like those on<br />
Swedish Vendel helmets and on Lothair’s crown (Figures 20.2, 20.4). together. 10<br />
<strong>Germanic</strong> helmets on Trajan’s Column, as well as Vendel helmets, thus are of the<br />
crossband type, 11 and several Vendel helmets share with those of Trajan’s Column the<br />
feature that the spaces between the crossbands are open (Figure 20.2).
Helmet-wearers 163<br />
Figure 20.2 Open Vendel helmet with<br />
a ridge (wale). Grave 6, Valsgärde,<br />
Uppland. Drawing after Böhner,<br />
“Spangenhelme” 1994, fig. 18, no. 5.<br />
See there for further such helmets.<br />
For all that scholars have said, crossband helmets, whether from Trajan’s Column or<br />
Vendel, differ fundamentally from the comb- or ridge-helmets of late-Roman guards, for<br />
there the ridge or “comb” has the structural function of holding together the two iron<br />
halves of the helmet bowl. 12 Crossband helmets, on the other hand, have no bowl, even<br />
when the spaces between the crossbands are closed with decorative metal foils. Their<br />
fore-to-aft band, therefore, does not hold parts of the bowl together. Architecturally,<br />
<strong>Germanic</strong> crossband helmets, together with Vendel helmets, stand in a native tradition.<br />
They first appear in scene 36 of Trajan’s Column.
<strong>Ancient</strong> <strong>Germanic</strong> warriors 164<br />
Though nothing links Constantinian half-bowls with Vendel crossbands, 13 scholars<br />
thought that early medieval Vendel helmets must have evolved from the comb helmets of<br />
Constantine’s time, partly because a gap of almost five hundred years yawns between the<br />
helmets documented on Trajan’s Column and the Vendel finds. It is true that, so far,<br />
crossband helmets from the first centuries of our era are known only from Trajan’s<br />
Column and a gravestone showing Quadi warriors, but none from finds in the ground. 14<br />
Yet since few Germani wore helmets, not many finds are to be expected. Besides, such<br />
gaps in the finds occur elsewhere too: very few late-Roman helmets have come to light<br />
after those of Constantine’s time, and no Carolingian ones. The lack of actual finds, as<br />
with Celtic helmets, proves only that helmets were rare, just as Tacitus says, and they<br />
were rarely buried. Coins of Probus in 278 and of Constantine in 315 seem to portray<br />
<strong>Germanic</strong> leaders wearing wale-topped crossband helmets. 15<br />
Crossband helmets also differ structurally from late antique and early medieval<br />
Spangenhelme, where instead of two crossbands, several metal strips lead from the<br />
browband to the top and they are riveted together to produce a blow-resistant cover. 16<br />
Crossband helmets come in two varieties: with and without a protective ridge (wale)<br />
over the fore-to-aft band. The helmets on Trajan’s Column have the protective ridge,<br />
which the Beowulf epic calls a wala and we may term “wale.” The epic describes the<br />
function of the wale atop Beowulf’s helmet thus: “A head-guard along the helmet’s roof,<br />
with wires wound round, guarded the outside so that a sword could not harm him<br />
dreadfully should the bold shield-warrior go against his foes.” 17 The function of the wale,<br />
then, was to parry sword blows, as combs did on Hittite and Hallstatt helmets more than a<br />
thousand years earlier. 18 Decorative dragon heads at each end of the wale gave added<br />
magic protection. 19<br />
It has been said that a quick turn of the helmet-wearer’s head, as a sword blow fell,<br />
would take the blow across the wale and thus keep the cap from splitting. 20 It seems,<br />
however, that no such turning was needed to parry a blow, for when warriors fought face<br />
to face and shield to shield, sword blows from an opponent’s right hand naturally hit the<br />
wale at an angle. The wale that absorbed blows to the head was a useful thing indeed, for<br />
the worst slashes of long swords came from above, slicing through the head. 21<br />
The crossband helmets on Trajan’s Column are open between the bands to flaunt the<br />
hair, a warrior’s pride. The wish to show off one’s hair also explains why the helmets sit<br />
so high atop the head—unlike Roman helmets they let the hair curl out from underneath.<br />
Celtic and <strong>Germanic</strong> leaders seldom wore helmets since they wanted their hair to be seen<br />
and their person to be known. Wanting to be recognized for their deeds in battle, warriors<br />
even took off their helmets in the thick of fighting. 22<br />
The open helmets depicted on Trajan’s Column, with narrow cheek pieces and no<br />
neck guards, cannot have been meant to guard against all dangers, certainly not against<br />
arrows. 23 In a sense, then, they were crowns rather than helmets. They are also much<br />
lighter than Roman helmets, which befits the faster <strong>Germanic</strong> fighting styles. As during<br />
the migration period <strong>Germanic</strong> weaponry grew heavier, so crossband helmets became<br />
closed Vendel helmets, even though they kept their crossband structure.<br />
Who were Trajan’s crossband-helmet wearers? So far, scholars have found no means<br />
to identify them. 24 Yet wearing un-Roman helmets while striding to war alongside<br />
barefooted swordsmen and wolf-warriors, they are very likely Germani. 25 All four are<br />
bearded, and like several other <strong>Germanic</strong> warriors on the Column, two of them have their
Helmet-wearers 165<br />
chin and middle cheeks shaven in the beard style of the fourth-century Welschbillig<br />
herms and “forebears” on the seventh-century Sutton Hoo scepter. 26 All of this suggests<br />
that the helmet wearers on the Column are <strong>Germanic</strong> lords.<br />
Wearing cuirasses, they are also Roman auxiliaries. Perhaps they are followers of a<br />
warband leader in the service of Rome, 27 for, as with the Vedic Maruts, leaders often<br />
gave their followers weapons and helmets like their own. Archaeological finds have<br />
documented this custom among <strong>Germanic</strong> warriors as early as AD 200. Frankish princes<br />
equipped their warbands thus in AD 470, and Beowulf’s helm-berend followers all wore<br />
boar helmets like Beowulf’s own. Sixth-century warriors, portrayed on bronze foils from<br />
grave 14 at Vendel, all flaunt eagle helmets, and in AD 1152, when Gregorius Dagsson<br />
came to the Norwegian assembly in a gilded helmet, all his followers were helmeted<br />
too. 28 Members of <strong>Germanic</strong> warbands thus may have been uniformly equipped as early<br />
as the first century AD.<br />
Literary sources say that few German warriors owned swords or helmets, and<br />
archaeological finds show this was indeed so. 29 The helmet wearers in scene 36 thus<br />
belong to a group of elite warriors. Rulers often sought out high-born followers for their<br />
warband, and athelings sometimes fought in units all of their own. 30<br />
Wearing helmets against sword blows, these warriors meant to go against swordsmen<br />
like themselves. Swords, as we have seen, were the noblest of weapons, held in even<br />
greater honor than spears. 31 A class of high-born swordsmen thus flourished in firstcentury<br />
Germany, as it did in the early Middle Ages: men who stood out for their swordfighting<br />
and showy helmets—a noteworthy new aspect of ancient <strong>Germanic</strong> society.<br />
Anglo-Saxon battle lords also wore open crossband helmets, known from actual<br />
finds. 32 The finest such helmet, with a separately worked tubular wale ending in animal<br />
heads, comes from Sutton Hoo. Buried about AD 625, it may have been made as early as<br />
AD 500. 33 Other Anglo-Saxon crossband helmets include the seventh-century Coppergate<br />
helmet from York that has a double-raised wale shaped into animal heads at each end, 34<br />
and the Benty Grange helmet that adds some slanted subsidiary strips like those on the<br />
Thorsberg crown to the regular crossband structure (Figure 20.3). 35<br />
Book illustrations such as the Stuttgart Bilderpsalter show that Frankish warriors in<br />
Carolingian times also wore crossband helmets. 36 Wale helmets were weapons of high<br />
standing from Trajan’s Column to Vendel graves, and so they were later still, for<br />
Valhelm and Walahelm are Anglo-Saxon and Old High German warrior names. 37<br />
Once taken as proof of the North’s cultural dependence on Rome, 38 Vendel helmets<br />
thus stand in a native <strong>Germanic</strong> tradition. Both in design and in prestige as status symbols<br />
for high-ranking followers of kings, 39 they hark back to the helmets in scene 36 of<br />
Trajan’s Column. <strong>Germanic</strong> warriors wore them for many years thereafter too. As a mark<br />
of high standing, leaders still wore Vendel helmets in the tenth century, in the middle of<br />
the Viking period, when other warriors wore newer, pointed-bowl “Norman” helmets as<br />
in Figure 5.4. 40<br />
Crossband crowns<br />
The helmets on scene 36 of Trajan’s Column look remarkably like medieval and modern<br />
crowns. The earliest known crown of this type is a third-century cap made of gilded silver
<strong>Ancient</strong> <strong>Germanic</strong> warriors 166<br />
found at Thorsberg in Schleswig (Figure 20.3). It follows the basic crossband<br />
construction, with browband and fore-to-aft band, but instead of one ear-to-ear band it<br />
has four slanted such bands.<br />
Worn with a face mask like later Vendel helmets, the Thorsberg crown sat as high<br />
atop the head as do the helmets on Trajan’s Column and crowns<br />
Figure 20.3 Silver crown from<br />
Thorsberg, Schleswig. Side view.<br />
Photo: Archäologisches<br />
Landesmuseum, Schloss Gottorf,<br />
Schleswig.<br />
of kings. Its drop-like ornaments show that it was made in free Germany, not in a Roman<br />
province. 41 Being of precious metal, it must have belonged to a prince and served as a<br />
symbol of power. It lacks a separate wale, as do several Vendel helmets and crossband<br />
crowns. 42<br />
The structure of the Thorsberg crown, with its four “ear-to-ear” bands, is similar to<br />
that of the helmets from graves 7 and 8 at Vendel and that of the Benty Grange helmet.<br />
Crowns and helmets with several ear-to-ear bands thus constitute a sub-group of<br />
crossband helmets, linked by their structure to helmets and crowns from the first to the<br />
seventh century.<br />
Vendel helmets and the Thorsberg crown share the same structure because <strong>Germanic</strong><br />
crowns were, in fact, golden helmets. 43 Late Roman emperors wore golden helmets in<br />
battle so that their soldiers could recognize them, a custom they adopted in the third<br />
century AD, perhaps from northerners. 44 The kingly tenth-century Viking leader Olaf in
Helmet-wearers 167<br />
the Laxardal saga, upon coming to Ireland, wore a helmet with golden plates, and in AD<br />
1030 King Olaf of Norway wore a golden helmet in the battle at Stiklastad. Snorri<br />
Sturlusson writes that when the king in his golden helmet, together with his best-armed<br />
retainers, sallied out of the shield castle his foes were filled with dread. 45 It was a tactical<br />
move almost like Trajan’s in scene 36 of his Column (Figures 0.2, 1.1), or that reported<br />
by Ammianus Marcellinus for the battle at Strassburg in AD 357: the princes sallying<br />
forth to the decisive attack.<br />
While we have no other early crowns or images of crowns from the North,<br />
Charlemagne in the early ninth century, if one can trust his somewhat damaged lead<br />
seals, wore a crossband crown, just as his soldiers wore cross-band helmets. 46 The crown<br />
of his grandson Lothair I (840–855), well known from a gold medallion (Figure 20.4),<br />
clearly was an open crossband “helmet” with a protective wale. 47<br />
Lothair’s crown resembles the crossband helmets on Trajan’s Column, especially in<br />
the shape of the wale, which grows higher toward the top, but differs in that the ear-to-ear<br />
band reaches only halfway up to the fore-to-aft band, perhaps so that more of the hair<br />
shows. The vanishing ear-to-ear band is of great interest, for it points to the German<br />
imperial crown from which, by the time of Otto the Great (936–962), the ear-to-ear band<br />
has gone altogether. 48 The crown of Konrad II (1024–1039) in Vienna (Figure 20.5)<br />
likewise lacks an ear-to-ear band, but its architecture is clear, as it is made of browband<br />
and fore-to-aft band with a wale. 49 Konrad’s crown, moreover, has hinges on the sides for<br />
cheek pieces, which further points to its origin from a helmet. 50<br />
The crowns of Lothair, Otto, and Konrad, stemming as they do from open crossband<br />
helmets with a wale, thus embody a tradition seen already on Trajan’s Column. 51 Indeed,<br />
it is fair to say that Indo-European golden helmets gave rise, in an unbroken line, to<br />
medieval and modern crowns. 52 Royal crowns today, then, still bespeak battle lords who,<br />
like the helmet-wearers
<strong>Ancient</strong> <strong>Germanic</strong> warriors 168<br />
Figure 20.4 Lothair I, wearing an open<br />
crown with a wale. Book cover, British<br />
Library, London. British Museum,<br />
ADD M.S. 37768; Museum<br />
photograph.<br />
in scene 36 on Trajan’s Column, wore striking and daringly open crossband helmets as<br />
they faced their foes. Woden himself was believed to fight in earth’s last battle, at<br />
Ragnarök, wearing his golden helmet. Warrior kings with golden helmets or crowns thus<br />
shared in his ecstasy. 53
Helmet-wearers 169<br />
Figure 20.5 German imperial crown<br />
(AD 1027). Weltliche Schatzkammer,<br />
Hofburg, Wien. Photo:<br />
Kunsthistorisches Museum, Wien,<br />
Neg. III 19.159.
Part 9<br />
WARRIOR STYLES<br />
THROUGH THE AGES
21<br />
IRON AGE WARRIORS AND THE<br />
CIVILIZATIONS OF GREECE AND ROME<br />
Caesar’s foresight was found to counterbalance the<br />
Germani’s fiery spirit and their headlong, reckless attack.<br />
Dio Cassius<br />
Indo-European warfare of the Bronze Age and the Iron Age has not yet been studied as a<br />
whole. Aside from chariotry, relatively little of it is known. There is very early evidence,<br />
however. Natalevka-type stone stelae from around 3000 BC, found in Ukraine, show a<br />
naked berserk warrior as well as clubs, axes, spears, knives, bows, arrows, and horses,<br />
betraying a wealth of fighting techniques. 1 By 1600 BC at the latest, when Aryans came<br />
to India, Indo-European warrior styles were in full swing. Around 1200 BC, at the end of<br />
the Bronze Age in West Asia, berserks decided battles and wolf-warriors ran with war<br />
chariots.<br />
Warbands (Männerbünde) with their own ways of bravery and “willfulness,”<br />
underpinned these warrior styles. Sanskrit svadhā, “inherent power, habitual state,<br />
custom,” is kindred to Greek and English ethos, “character, behavior,” and to Latin<br />
sodales “warband”. Svadhā comes close to our concept of warrior style, referring not<br />
only to “group” and “behavior” but also to weapons that went with these. The Ŗg-Veda<br />
says of Indra’s Marut warband: “They glitter like lightning through the rain, with<br />
weapons befitting their svadhā.” To fight in such style was a ritual, acting out a myth.<br />
Groups of wolf-warriors and berserks had their own weapons, tactics, and war dances.<br />
Svadhd heightened the group’s spirit and made its grim ways less shocking to themselves<br />
and out-siders. 2 Their excesses meant glory: wolf-warriors, berserks, and ghost warriors<br />
no doubt won the “unwilting glory” held out by the Iliad and Rig-Veda 3<br />
By the time of their classical periods, Greeks and Romans had created another ideal:<br />
balanced reasonableness. Seeing themselves as civilized, they saw others as barbarians,<br />
given to wantonness in all ways of life: eating, drinking, bragging, fighting, and fleeing.<br />
Plato and Aristotle thought it unreasonable to gorge on food and drink, an ideal of Indo-<br />
European warriors. 4 They saw the fearlessness of “barbarians,” however great, as<br />
mindlessness and believed that “barbarians,” having little to live for, rushed to their<br />
death. 5 As they perfected the art of disciplined, rational fighting, Greeks and Romans saw<br />
mindlessness as the root of “barbarian” tactics. 6 In the fourth century AD, Ammianus<br />
holds this view of all “barbarians,” especially Africans, while in the sixth century,<br />
Maurice restricts it to the “blond nations.” 7<br />
Yet Greeks too once had ecstatic warriors and only slowly abandoned the wild ways<br />
of “mad-dog” Hector and “wolfish” Achilles. The Iliad tells of an early step down the
Iron age warriors and the civilizations of Greece and Rome 173<br />
path to “civilized” fighting: while Trojan warriors yelled and shouted, Greek battle<br />
groups kept quiet, listening for orders. 8 During the archaic period, as the tactics of heavyarmed<br />
citizen hoplites spread, most Greeks laid aside their weapons to live peacefully in<br />
towns, donning simple dress instead of gold-gleaming Indo-European warrior garb. 9<br />
Spartans so insisted on orderliness that they punished Isadas for fighting naked when he<br />
saved them from a sudden rush of the enemy. 10<br />
Greeks thus turned to well-ordered fighting, and for many years the hoplite array of<br />
the classical period stood unshaken. That changed when Athenians faced backward<br />
Aetolian hillmen who, lacking armor and fighting barefoot on their native ground, sent<br />
the hoplites reeling. 11 Though civic-minded Athenians kept up their prowess in war, they<br />
had seen the limits of orderly tactics. Henceforth, when they needed attack troops, they<br />
hired Aetolian or Thracian tribesmen, whose speed and fierceness mark them as berserklike<br />
warriors. 12<br />
Rome took the same path. Early Romans shared the Bronze Age and Iron Age Indo-<br />
European warrior styles that Italic tribes brought from north of the Alps to the Italian<br />
peninsula around 1000 BC. 13 Wolf-warriors, as we have seen, founded Rome, and in<br />
Hannibal’s time such warriors still went before the legions. Indeed, early Italic warriors<br />
upheld many Indo-European fighting styles: some fought shouting, as half-naked foot and<br />
horse, barefoot, fur-clad, flowing-haired, or in warbands. Some wielded wooden clubs,<br />
firehardened spear-tips, and curved swords, or screeched war songs like flocks of raucous<br />
birds. 14 Harnessing the power of ecstasy, these styles won early Rome her victories. 15<br />
Over time Rome recast her army into more disciplined legions, even though reckless<br />
attack and single combat remained hallmarks of the Roman army down to the time of<br />
Caesar. Gradually, however, Roman soldiers donned uniform (more or less), cut their<br />
hair, and when attacked stood quietly until given the signal. 16 To their field commanders,<br />
the worst faults were now speed and daring. 17 Their animal sympathy shrank to mere<br />
symbolism. “Rome,” as Dumézil puts it, 18 “lost even the memory of those bands of<br />
warriors who sought to be more than human, on whom magico-military initiation was<br />
supposed to confer supernatural powers, and whose likeness was presented, very much<br />
later, by Scandinavia with its berserks and by Ireland with its Fianna.”<br />
Romans, like Greeks, fashioned an ideology to underpin the new tactics. Trusting in<br />
reason, will, and order, 19 they now gaped at Celtic and <strong>Germanic</strong> madness (vesania,<br />
amentia, iracundia, furor), those fits of reckless rage, that mindless rush to battle. In AD<br />
250, Emperor Decius told his soldiers: “A man trusting in reason is safer than one carried<br />
blindly toward unknown outcomes.” 20<br />
An embossed sword sheath from Windisch in Switzerland shows how Romans looked<br />
at northern warriors and how they hoped to overcome them (Figure 21.1). 21 The scene<br />
shows a giant long-haired warrior who if he stood to his full height would be taller than<br />
the soldier on horseback and might well take him on. Instead, he is speared in the back as<br />
he runs away—the thrust of the spear has thrown him forward and swept the horseman<br />
back-ward. The scene gives one to understand that superior Roman generalship,<br />
discipline, and fully armored staying power have turned the tide of battle, and now, as the<br />
tribesmen flee, helmeted but lightly clad auxiliary lancers in pursuit cut them down.<br />
Theory held that huge bodies were more vulnerable and that reason would overcome<br />
fighting madness. In practice, large bodies were of course an advantage, and as for
<strong>Ancient</strong> <strong>Germanic</strong> warriors 174<br />
fighting madness, Greeks and Romans needed it too for steadiness was not enough: the<br />
keenest troops of Alexander and Caesar fought “like beasts.” 22<br />
For a while, relying on discipline and reason brought stunning conquests. Disciplined<br />
Romans overcame the Gauls who had earlier outdone them in the “glory of war.” 23 In the<br />
ensuing peace, however, Romans and Italians<br />
Figure 21.1 Giant warrior overcome<br />
by Roman horseman. Bronze scabbard,<br />
Windisch, Switzerland. Photo:<br />
Kantonsarchäologie Aargau,<br />
Vindonissa Museum.<br />
ceased to be warriors, and their heartland lay open to attack. Tacitus and Ammianus<br />
bewail this in their Histories. Uniformity and superb equipment bought time for Rome;<br />
hiring foreign tribesmen bought still more time. But it was borrowed time and came to an<br />
end. Far-sighted Tacitus saw Roman virtus as so blunted by peace and Empire that he has<br />
someone say “Only foreigners still count in the Roman army.” 24 Trajan’s Column bears<br />
this out when it shows the emperor leading northern wolf- and bear-warriors, berserks,<br />
club-men, and helm-wearers—fierce, frightening figures who bestride the battlefields and<br />
do much of the fighting.<br />
Those who saw Rome’s warrior spirit ebb, pointed to the disappearance of the old and<br />
colorful fighting styles. Romans of the Republic upheld a civic ideal of manhood, but<br />
during the Empire, Romans looked to the north to find the freedom and manhood once<br />
characteristic of Rome and Italy. 25 Writing wistfully of old Italic warrior styles, Vergil
Iron age warriors and the civilizations of Greece and Rome 175<br />
uses images of northern warriors. Silius Italicus echoes him, and Lucanus, in Nero’s time,<br />
looks beyond the Alps for colorful warrior styles. 26<br />
Strabo, in Augustus’ time, observed with insight that the warrior spirit still thrived<br />
among free Germani and island Celts. 27 With Ariovistus in 60 BC, the old styles had<br />
already begun to make headway against the somewhat Romanized Celts in Gaul. 28 When<br />
Ariovistus and his warriors faced Caesar, Dio Cassius has Caesar give a speech that<br />
repeats the time-worn Greek and Roman view of northern warriors: tall, naked, reckless,<br />
loud, unruly, and rash. 29 The description, however, though hackneyed, is in many ways<br />
true.<br />
Using the old fighting styles, and combining a spirit of freedom with culturally<br />
sustained forms of discipline rather than blind obedience, northern warriors held their<br />
own against Rome even at the peak of her power. Tacitus quipped that <strong>Germanic</strong> freedom<br />
was deadlier to Rome than Persian despotism: Rome had come to see <strong>Germanic</strong> warriors<br />
as its most fearsome enemies. 30<br />
When Caesar moved the frontier to the Rhine, he began large-scale recruitment of<br />
Germani. As the legions’ role began to shrink, emperors enlisted more and more old-style<br />
northern warriors from beyond the Rhine and Danube. 31 This not only brought about a<br />
resurgence of warrior styles in the imperial army but emperors also came to behave like<br />
<strong>Germanic</strong> leaders. Trajan “led” wolf-warriors and shirtless, barefoot berserks; Caracalla<br />
caroused with his bodyguard as <strong>Germanic</strong> chieftains did with their warbands, and he and<br />
Maximinus fought with their own hands and strained to look tall and fierce “like the most<br />
warlike barbarians.” 32 Under Septimius Severus (AD 193–211) warfare again became for<br />
Roman emperors what it had been for leaders in the Bronze Age and Iron Age and what it<br />
would remain for the next thousand years throughout Europe: the all-consuming<br />
occupation of rulers, governments, and ruling classes. 33 The come-back of the old warrior<br />
styles signaled the advent of the Middle Ages, not only in Europe but in Iran and China<br />
as well. 34<br />
Are frenzied warriors not easily overcome by disciplined, well-equipped troops?<br />
Classical Greeks and Romans would have it so, 35 and as late as AD 296 a speaker<br />
praising Constantius, the father of Constantine, claimed that Julius Caesar had had it<br />
good, for all his Roman battle order had to do was best British warriors “used only to<br />
half-naked Picts and Irish as foes.” 36 Seneca similarly held that in their overweening<br />
anger Germani could be beaten even by unwarlike Asiatics; 37 and Constantius II made<br />
light of Julian’s victories over “half-armed Germani.” 38<br />
The rise of <strong>Germanic</strong> troops in the Roman army, however, proves otherwise. By the<br />
fourth century it reached a high point: Rome’s and Byzantium’s best troops were<br />
<strong>Germanic</strong> soldiers, using <strong>Germanic</strong> weapons and tactics. Theodosius’ obelisk in<br />
Byzantium shows that even the role of escorting the emperor at public ceremonies,<br />
formerly belonging to the praetorian guard, fell to long-haired, blond <strong>Germanic</strong><br />
guardsmen, with their characteristically broad, inward-curving spear blades and their<br />
golden torc neckbands (Figure 21.2). 39<br />
<strong>Germanic</strong> warriors rose to the position of Rome’s highest-ranking soldiers not because<br />
they were easily overcome but because they were the keenest fighters to be found. Their<br />
fame was such that, as we have seen, Constantine had himself portrayed as a buckwarrior.<br />
Besides, their ethic was to keep faith with the warband leader—in this case the
<strong>Ancient</strong> <strong>Germanic</strong> warriors 176<br />
Roman emperor. Should anything befall him, they would avenge him as berserks, as they<br />
did at the death of Caligula and Julian. 40<br />
The <strong>Germanic</strong> equivalent of discipline on the battlefield was barritus chanting and<br />
shield-swinging; the equivalent of strategic discipline was (besides tribal coherence)<br />
keeping faith with the “giver of rings.” 41 These were inner bonds that stood up to outer<br />
Roman order and drill and allowed warriors to win against soldiers. Warrior styles were a<br />
mind-set, and Plato, like Herodotus, may have been right to conclude that in war mind-set<br />
matters most. 42<br />
Figure 21.2 <strong>Germanic</strong> guards of<br />
Theodosius (AD 379–395).<br />
Theodosius’ Obelisk, Byzantium.<br />
Photo: Michael Speidel.
22<br />
END AND AFTERGLOW<br />
If a man goes berserk, he will be punished by the lesser<br />
outlawry.<br />
Grágás Lawbook, “Christian Laws”<br />
Abidingness and end<br />
Over large areas of Europe, Roman influence and then conquest brought an end to the old<br />
warrior styles. Caesar held that the Gauls had become soft through contact with Rome<br />
long before he conquered them. 1 Likewise Roman monuments rarely portray Dacians<br />
fighting in the old styles: at the most they use curved swords, form a double shield wall,<br />
or stab a horse. Living in towns and being subject to kings, Dacians, like Gauls, shed the<br />
old styles through contact with Rome. Not all of Western Europe, however, shut itself off<br />
from the old warrior styles: 2 Island Celts and Germani kept their freedom, their warrior<br />
spirit and their old fighting styles into the early Middle Ages.<br />
On the battlefield the old styles held their own against the Romans. They also lasted so<br />
long because they were bound up with heathen <strong>Germanic</strong> culture. By steady renewal in<br />
images of mythic beginnings among gods and ancestors, they achieved ecstasy. 3 In many<br />
archaic societies war was the aspect of life that called the most for the presence of gods<br />
and ancestors, 4 and this holds true also for ancient Germani: witness the masked ancestor<br />
dance. Tacitus, noting that Germani “believed the gods to be with those in battle,”<br />
implies that this belief mattered more to ancient Germani than to Romans. 5<br />
As one of the most tradition-bound human pursuits, 6 warfare kept rural, non-literate<br />
European societies like those of the Celts and Germani steadfastly to their old ways. 7<br />
Admittedly, during the long time from 200 BC to AD 1000, warrior styles evolved, for as<br />
society grew more aristocratic and monarchic, hauberks, helmets, and ango-spear came<br />
into wider use, also broadax, throwing-ax, and bow. The aristocratic outlook may also<br />
have caused the weapon dance in the seventh century to be performed dressed and no<br />
longer naked. Changes, though, were never sweeping, and from the third century onwards<br />
the ratio of churls to elite warriors stayed about the same. 8 Early medieval warriors thus<br />
had little reason to abandon the time-honored fighting styles. Besides, warrior items of<br />
“materialized ideology” like ancient, powerful weapons, or splendid Vendel helmets,<br />
strengthened the athelings’ grip on power. 9 Iron Age warfare thus continued without a<br />
break into the early Middle Ages. 10<br />
The coming of Christianity undid the old warrior styles. As native religion gave way<br />
to Christianity, the warrior styles, bound to Woden-worship, were outlawed. For Iceland<br />
we have the wording of that law, as seen in the epigraph to this chapter. Similar laws<br />
were passed in other newly Christianized lands, though among Merovingians,<br />
Christianized early in the sixth century, the changeover took longer—witness the
<strong>Ancient</strong> <strong>Germanic</strong> warriors 178<br />
Obrigheim foil (Figure 1.5). In Scandinavia, where Christianity came late, the break was<br />
sharp and sudden: the old styles went out at once. Only at Uppsala, in the far north, did<br />
Woden’s war dance last through most of the eleventh century.<br />
Afterglow<br />
In the high Middle Ages, the knights’ widespread wolf- and bear-sympathy, as seen in the<br />
Hundsgugel (Figure 1.8), are mere shadows of the erstwhile wolf- and bear-warrior<br />
styles. Nevertheless, Icelandic sagas of the fourteenth century still know the wolf-warrior<br />
Guðmund Ulfhedin to be king of the warrior paradise Glaesisvellir. 11 Likewise in the<br />
legend of Woden’s Wild Host, told in mainland Europe until modern times, wolves run<br />
with fallen warriors. 12<br />
Berserk blustering, and vaunting one’s unguarded fearlessness, are still alive when<br />
eighth-century Beowulf throws off helmet, hauberk, and sword as he meets the monster<br />
Grendel. 13 Icelandic sagas and Saxo Grammaticus speak of such diehard berserk habits as<br />
shield-biting and scorning armor. Howling like wolves, unbelievably strong, quickly<br />
flying into a fearsome rage, the steel-proof and fireproof berserks of the sagas represent<br />
sundry elite warrior styles rolled into one. Even as an afterglow of vanished customs, the<br />
berserks of these tales left a deep mark on men’s minds. While Tacitus’ long-hairs exact<br />
from other men food and lodging, the berserks of the sagas lay hands on high-born<br />
women—a harrowing memory of how elite warriors weighed on society.<br />
Humanists of the Renaissance read Tacitus’ tale of fur-clad northern warriors scaring<br />
people in the streets of Rome. When Bartoli’s etchings of Trajan’s Column, published in<br />
1667, brought images of wolf- and bear-warriors and half-naked berserks to the attention<br />
of many, northern patriotism began to idealize the old warrior styles. Wolf-hooded<br />
warriors strut about in J.C. Sang’s copper engraving for Schönaich’s 1753 epic Hermann<br />
oder das befreite Deutschland. A few years later, though, the performance in Leipzig of<br />
J.E.Schlegel’s play Hermann failed to overwhelm Goethe, “notwithstanding the many<br />
animal skins.”<br />
In the mid-eighteenth century the Flemish artist Peter Anton Verschaffelt sculpted a<br />
hooded wolf-warrior as the centerpiece of his allegory The Art of War, still standing<br />
outside the palace at Schwetzingen. On a Dutch engraving of 1783 the national hero<br />
Civilis wears a (winged) wolf-hood. 14 In Switzerland a painting of 1858 shows wolfwarriors<br />
growling among Helvetians as they send Roman prisoners under the yoke. 15<br />
Wolf-warriors also lurk on the walls of Denmark’s Frederiksborg Castle painted after the<br />
fire of 1859. Stockholm and Göteborg have naked-warrior monuments. Never yet<br />
collected or studied systematically, such works of art can be delightfully odd: an iron<br />
sculpture made in 1842 by August Fischer casts its two fighters in patriotically reversed<br />
roles: a Roman on foot fights with a club against a <strong>Germanic</strong> bear-warrior on<br />
horseback. 16<br />
Perhaps out of embarrassment at animal-hooded and half-naked forebears, the<br />
twentieth century largely overlooked <strong>Germanic</strong> warrior styles on Trajan’s Column. To us<br />
in the twenty-first century, the old warrior styles are both an anthropological<br />
phenomenon and a part of European antiquity alive until the High Middle Ages. They<br />
appeal, for the human motivations they embodied still live. 17 This study may have shown
End and afterglow 179<br />
that our shared humanity can give us an insider understanding of ancient warriors and<br />
empathy for a bygone style of life.
CONCLUSION<br />
The foregoing chapters reveal that there are rich sources allowing us to trace the history<br />
of <strong>Germanic</strong> warrior styles. Though some styles are better documented than others, a<br />
coherent picture emerges. Deep-rooted, colorful warrior styles offer insight into the<br />
tactics of ancient warfare, into the frame of mind of the warriors, and into the culture of<br />
heathen Germania.<br />
The warrior styles in turn throw new light on the sources. Our study has shown that,<br />
tied together by the presence of barefooted berserks, scenes 36–42 of Trajan’s Column to<br />
narrate one specific campaign, essential for grasping the historical content of the reliefs.<br />
Depicting <strong>Germanic</strong> warrior styles known from later centuries, the Column again proves<br />
its historical accuracy. Icelandic sagas, for their part, are now seen to preserve elite<br />
warrior traits of far earlier times.<br />
The continuity of <strong>Germanic</strong> culture turns out to be stronger than hitherto<br />
acknowledged. On Trajan’s Column as in Icelandic sagas, wolf- and bear-warriors fought<br />
alongside each other. From the first century to the seventh, leaders wore crossband<br />
helmets, barritus chanters swung their shields in unison, and charging lancers bore long<br />
spears on their shoulders. The heroic ideal described in Tacitus’ Germania is the same<br />
still in the tenth-century Battle of Maldon. Contrary to twentieth-century opinion, much<br />
of <strong>Germanic</strong> antiquity continued without a break into the Middle Ages.<br />
The unity of heathen <strong>Germanic</strong> culture is also found to be stronger than hitherto<br />
thought. Alamanni, Swedes, and Anglo-Saxons all wore Vendel helmets decorated with<br />
the same heroic images first designed in Alamannia. Southern Germans, like<br />
Scandinavians, fought as ecstatic wolf- and bear-warriors or berserks. Bavarians danced<br />
Woden’s war dance as did Scandinavians and Anglo-Saxons. Migrations, alliances,<br />
warriors seeking employment abroad, high-born women marrying to other courts, trade,<br />
warfare, prisoners, and much else caused North and South to share all the main features<br />
of society, war, religion, language and poetry.<br />
Lastly, the deep Bronze Age and Iron Age tradition of these warrior styles leaps to the<br />
eye. Foot warriors stabbing enemy horses from underneath are known not only among<br />
Alamanni and Swedes but also among Thracians and Celts, and thus are an Indo-<br />
European warrior style like wolf-warriors and ecstatic naked warriors. Claims of Roman<br />
influence—that berserks stem from gladiators, that Woden was a “Randkultur”-Mars, that<br />
Vendel helmets derived from late-Roman guard helmets—are unfounded. Our study has<br />
shown that these things belong to native <strong>Germanic</strong> and Indo-European tradition.<br />
Whatever progress has been made, much is still to be learned about ancient <strong>Germanic</strong><br />
warriors, much that will widen and deepen our understanding of Europe’s older, heathen<br />
culture.
TIMETABLE<br />
3000 BC–800 BC Bronze Age<br />
800 BC–AD 500 Iron Age<br />
800 BC–AD 500 Antiquity<br />
AD 500–AD 1000 Early Middle Ages<br />
2000 BC Dispersal of Indo-Europeans<br />
1600 BC Greeks come to Greece, Aryans to India<br />
1600 BC–1100 BC Mycenaean Period<br />
1000 BC Italic tribes come to Italy<br />
800 BC Homer’s Iliad and Odyssey<br />
753 BC Romulus founds Rome<br />
480 BC Xerxes attacks Greece<br />
336 BC–323 BC Alexander the Great<br />
58 BC Caesar advances the Roman frontier to the Rhine<br />
31 BC–AD 14 Augustus<br />
9 Battle in the Teutoburg Forest; Rome retreats from Germany east of the Rhine<br />
96–117 Trajan<br />
98 Tacitus writes the Germania<br />
c. 200 Alamanni come to southern Germany<br />
306–337 Constantine<br />
355–363 Julian<br />
357 Battle at Strassburg<br />
378 Battle at Adrianople<br />
378–568 Migration period<br />
c. 390 Ammianus publishes his History<br />
400–500 Anglo-Saxons come to Britain<br />
476 Fall of Rome<br />
c. 500 Clovis and the Franks take Gaul, become Christian<br />
520–793 Vendel period<br />
600–700 Alamanni and Anglo-Saxons become Christian<br />
768–814 Charlemagne<br />
793–1066 Viking period
Time table 182<br />
850–930 Iceland discovered, settled<br />
872 Battle of the Hafrsfjord; Norway united<br />
872 Haraldsquiða by Thorbjorn Hornklofi<br />
c. 950 Denmark becomes Christian<br />
c. 1000 Poetic Edda<br />
1000 Norway and the North Sea islands become Christian<br />
1066 Normans conquer England<br />
1070 <strong>Heathen</strong> shrine at Uppsala closed<br />
1200–1300 Icelandic sagas<br />
1208–1218 Saxo Grammaticus<br />
c. 1220 Prose (Snorra) Edda
NOTES<br />
INTRODUCTION<br />
1 Grönbech, Kultur [1912] 1997, II, 218ff.; Höfler, Geheimbünde 1934, 44ff.; 154ff.; 250ff.;<br />
Hauck, “Lebensnormen” 1955; Hauck, “Polytheismus” 1994, 225; Eliade, Return 1954;<br />
Eliade, Myth 1963, 145; Kershaw, God 2000, 21ff.<br />
2 Stevens, “Gigantomachia,” Poetry 1997, 258; compare Keegan, Mask 1987. Forebears and<br />
those after: Tacitus, Agricola 32.4 (on Britons).<br />
3 War welcome: Herodotus 5.6 (Thracians); Strabo 4.4.2 (Celts); Seneca, Nat. Quaest. 4a.1.2:<br />
“Germanos, avidam bello gentem”; Tacitus, Germania 14: “ingrata genti quies”; Histories<br />
4.16.1: “Laeta bello gens”; Ammianus 16.12.46: “Alamanni bella alacriter ineunt”; Libanios,<br />
Oratio 59, 128 (Franks in the fourth century AD thought that a life lacking deeds was the<br />
greatest grief, while wartime offered the highest happiness); Iordanes, Getica 39 (206):<br />
“Certaminis huius gaudia” (Huns). Davie, Evolution 1929, 147; Turney-High, War 1991,<br />
166ff. Turney-High, War 1991, 144. Wallace-Hadrill, Kingship 1971, 151: War was “a way<br />
of life as much as a means of survival or expansion.” World-wide: Turney-High, War 1991,<br />
141f. Eliade, Return 1954, 29: “War or the duel can in no case be explained through<br />
rationalistic motives”; Steuer, “Kriegswesen” 2001; LeShan, Psychology 1992. War.<br />
Motivations for war: Turney-High, War 1991, 141ff.; Beck, Waffentanz 1968; Haas,<br />
Anthropology 1990, XII.<br />
4 Puhvel, Mythology 1987, 193: “The centrality of the warlike element.” Birkhan, Kelten 1997,<br />
950: “Den Zugang zum ‘Eigentlich Keltischen’ im Heroentum und in der Heldensage<br />
suchen.” Kershaw, God 2000.<br />
5 Work on Indo-European warrior styles: Widengren, Feudalismus 1969; Birkhan, “Germanen”<br />
1970; Blaney, “Berserkr” 1972; Alföldi, Struktur 1974; Crevatin, Ricerche 1979; Ziegler,<br />
Oðin 1985; McCone, “Hund” 1987; Miller, “Hair” 1998; Kershaw, God 2000; for the<br />
valuable studies by Georges Dumézil, Otto Höfler, and Karl Hauck see the bibliography. A<br />
book on Indo-European warrior styles is badly needed. The study of initiation (Blaney,<br />
“Berserkr” 1972, 90–129; Meier, “Initiation” 2000) and the so-called Männerbünde (Bollée,<br />
“Sodalities” 1981; Bremmer, “Suodales” 1982, cf. AE 1996, 39) is beyond our more narrow<br />
military scope, but see now the outstanding work by Kershaw, God 2000. Overlooked: Beck,<br />
Germanen 1998; Schmitt, “Altertumskunde,” 2000.<br />
6 Tacitus mistakenly criticized: see p. 82, note 7; 98, note 4. Trajan’s Column: see notes 14, 19,<br />
21, and p. 7.<br />
7 Bracteates: Hauck, Goldbrakteaten I–IV, 1985–1989; also Hauck, “Polytheismus” 1994, 261.<br />
Names: Grimm, “Bedeutung” 1865; Kaufmann, Personennamen 1968, renewing<br />
Förstemann, Namenbuch 1900; Müller, “Wolfhetan” 1967; Müller, Personennamen 1970;<br />
Reichert, Lexikon 1987 and 1990; Beck, “Personennamen” 1986.<br />
8 Turney-High, War 1991; Haas, Anthropology 1990. Turney-High’s is an outstanding study of<br />
primitive war, far more useful than the dry-as-dust dichotomies of Wright, War 1942; but<br />
while he makes welcome use of Caesar and Tacitus, Turney-High does not consider any<br />
works on these two authors and hence at times mishandles them. Davie, Evolution 1929,<br />
deals with European primitive warfare only second-handedly. Good use of anthropology for<br />
early European warfare: Steuer, “Kriegswesen” 2001.
Notes 184<br />
9 Greeks and Indians separated: Drews, Coming 1988; Drews, End 1993; Kuzmina, “Migration”<br />
2001. Feared: Andreas Heusler in Schramm, Personennamen 1978, 55; Mallory, Search<br />
1989, 110f. Research: Poetry: Schmitt, Dichtung 1967; Dichtersprache 1968;<br />
“Altertumskunde” 2000; sceptical: Humbach, “Dichtersprache” 1967; contra: von See,<br />
Heldendichtung 1978, 2. Ideals: Schramm, Personennamen 1957. Religion, myth: Littleton,<br />
Mythology 1982; Puhvel, Mythology 1987; Drews, Coming 1988, 152; Lincoln, Death 1991,<br />
1–19. Culture: Mallory, Search 1989; Parpola, “Problem” 1995; Schmitt, “Altertumskunde”<br />
2000, 384–402. Institutions: Deger-Jalkotzy, E-QE-TA, 1978. Lively: Mallory and Adams,<br />
Encyclopedia 1997. Dumézil, Eliade: see bibliography.<br />
10 Linked: Littleton, Mythology 1982, 227ff.; Schmitt, “Altertumskunde” 2000, 399. <strong>Germanic</strong><br />
culture of the early Middle Ages may have kept Indo-European ways longest and most<br />
authentic (or archaic): Russell, Germanization 1994, 118.<br />
11 In tracing these styles from antiquity into the Middle Ages, one may use evidence from both<br />
periods: early medieval data explain those from antiquity, and vice versa. A similar use of<br />
sources in studying the Celts: Stancliffe, “Kings” 1980, 80.<br />
12 The best plates of the Column by far are those of Cichorius, Reliefs 1896. Figures 1.1, 5.1,<br />
14.1 and 20.1, likewise made from nineteenth-century casts, show some features not visible<br />
on Cichorius’ plates. Even outstanding recent color plates such as those in Settis, Colonna<br />
1988, are often inferior, for the Column is now wasting away in traffic fumes.<br />
13 Strategy and the thrust of the Column suggest that the battles in scenes 37 and 38 occurred<br />
after Trajan and his troops arrived (Gauer, Untersuchungen 1977, 68, contra: Strobel,<br />
Dakerkriege 1984, 181). Trajan’s presence in scenes 36 and 39 implies his being nearby in<br />
scenes 37 and 38. Adamklissi: Vulpe, Studia 1976, 199–265; Strobel, Dakerkriege 1984,<br />
177ff.; doubted by Lepper and Frere, Column 1988, 86ff.<br />
14 Equites Singulares Augusti: Strobel, Dakerkriege 1984, 244; Speidel, Denkmäler 1994, 417;<br />
Riding 1994, 44f.; 116ff. Horses spelled: Cichorius, failing to see the realism here,<br />
demanded of the cavalry that “in Wahrheit hätte sie aufsitzen müssen” (Reliefs 1898, 177).<br />
Lehmann-Hartleben, Trajanssäule 1926, 71, never tiring of “artistic reasons,” suggested that<br />
the horsemen walk to leave space for depicting the foot above them.<br />
15 Richmond, Army 1982, 20 noticed the man in the sleeveless shirt (“kilt-wearer”). Lepper and<br />
Frere, Column 1988, 84 find nothing worth commenting on in scene 36 but the “pendants<br />
dangling from the bridle of the emperor’s horse”—only that the pendants do not dangle from<br />
the bridle.<br />
16 Figures 0.2, 5.2, 5.3. Patsch, Kampf 1937, 66–70; cf. Strobel, Dakerkriege 1984, 177f.;<br />
Lepper and Frere, Column 1988, 86ff. Contra: Bennett, Trajan 1997, 93.<br />
17 Greater accuracy in scene 36: Lehmann-Hartleben, Trajamsäule 1926, 16, 20; Cichorius,<br />
Reliefs 1898, 196; Gauer, Untersuchungen 1977, 111. Scene 43 is back to normal: it shows<br />
only auxiliary cohorts. Accuracy in historical events: Cichorius, Reliefs II 1896, 117 (trust);<br />
Lehmann-Hartleben, Trajanssäule 1926, 64 (artistic reasons); Hamberg, Studies 1945, 109;<br />
Speidel, Studiey I 1984, 369–377 and 412. Laubscher, Galeriusbogen 1975, 129 may be<br />
right in that the showing of Decebalus’ head in scene 147 is not a formal adlocutio as I had<br />
suggested, yet it had the same function, see Gauer, Untersuchungen 1977, 104, note 246.<br />
Lepper and Frere, Column 1988, 177 flounder on this.<br />
18 Mistakes: In scene 50 a (much-eclipsed) standard-bearer wears strip armor when he should<br />
wear a mailshirt. Legionaries: The metopes of Adamklissi prove that some Trajanic<br />
legionaries wore mail; Bishop and Coulston, Equipment 1993, 85. Dacians: Dion<br />
Chrysostomus, Orations 12.19. A few Dacians—in distress—are seen on horse-back in<br />
scene 31, others in flight in scene 144.<br />
19 Accuracy in this sense is widely admitted: Cichorius, Reliefs II 1896, 191. Mauri: ibid.<br />
294ff.; Hamberg, “Germanen” 1936, 49; Richmond, 1982; Campbell, Emperor 1984, 146ff.;<br />
Speidel, Studies I 1984, 129 and 140f.; Waurick, “Rüstung” 1989. Sarmatians: Altheim,<br />
Niedergang I, 1952, 280; Gamber, “Waffen” 1964. Lepper and Frere, Column 1988, 19ff.
Notes 185<br />
and 299 admit accuracy in general, but p. 80 assert that “common sense would suggest”<br />
Sarmatian catafracts had legs free from armor, which is refuted by the famous Dura-Europos<br />
catafract graffito; the measure of correctness and mistakes in representing the Sarmatians is<br />
well taken by Gamber, “Waffen” 1964, 24f. Bishop and Coulston, Equipment 1993, 21f.,<br />
though wary of sculptors’ mistakes, yet single out “presence and equipment of certain<br />
irregular troop types” as valuable information given by the Column. Contra Timpe,<br />
“Begriffsbildung” 1999, 32: “das weithin erfahrungsresistente Barbarenbild.”<br />
20 Saxo 214ff. Stereotypes: Rehm, Bild 1932, 88f.; tall, etc.: below, p. 88; eager: CIL VI, 40524<br />
(AD 135) and above, note 3. Literary commonplaces reflecting the truth: Ammianus 23.6.30<br />
“ut scriptores antiqui docent nosque vidimus”; Norden, Urgeschichte 1974, XII. Contra: von<br />
See, “Germane” 1981. Northern stereotype: Norden, Urgeschichte 1974, 105–115; Mattern,<br />
Rome 1999, 66–80. Myth as reality: Mattern, Rome 1999, 222. Rome using troops in the<br />
northern stereotype: Dio 38.45.4–5. Hadrian even made his <strong>Germanic</strong> guardsmen pray to the<br />
gods whom Plato believed to be those of the Naturvölker (Cratylus 397d): Speidel,<br />
Denkmäler 1994, 25 (Sol, Luna, Caelum, Terra, Mare). Fake prisoners of war, dressed up to<br />
look like the stereotype: Suetonius, Caligula 47; Tacitus, Agricola 39.<br />
21 Hexagonal shields: Lepper and Frere, Column 1988, 267. Oval: Schleiermacher,<br />
Reitergrabsteine 1984, nos. 4; 5; 9; 12; 15; 17; 18; 20; etc., and even more so in the century<br />
of Trajan’s Column, and with the horsemen around the emperor: Speidel, Denkmäler 1994,<br />
9. Gravestones close to reality: Adler, Studien 1993, 240.<br />
22 Singulares: Speidel, Riding 1994, 39; 109ff. Tacitus, Germania 29: Batavi “virtute<br />
praecipui.” Alae: Vegetius 1.5; Speidel, Studies II 1992, 243. Alae in Trajan’s army: Strobel,<br />
Dakerkriege 1984, 106ff.<br />
23 Regulars and irregulars: Alföldy, Hilfstruppen 1968, 81ff. Cohorts: Cichorius, Reliefs 1896,<br />
178f. Gauer, Untersuchungen 1977, 59 sees in scene 36 “Praetorianer oder Legionäre in<br />
Etappenuniform (Eilmarsch!),” but “Etappenuniform” (whatever that is) does not go with<br />
sword in hand. <strong>Germanic</strong> pelt-wearers: Tacitus, Histories, 2.88: “ipsi tergis ferarum et<br />
ingentibus telis horrentes.” Germani: e.g. Tacitus, Agricola, 36; cf. 11.3 (not Gauls);<br />
Histories 2.32.5. Helmets: see pp. 181ff. The fallen: CIL III, 14214; Strobel, Dakerkriege<br />
1984, 121, 237ff.; Strobel, “Anmerkungen” 1987, has also cohors IX Batavorum there, but<br />
that unit seems to have stayed in Britain until AD 105, see Birley, Garrison 2002, 65. For<br />
cohorts I and II Batavorum milliariae see now Roxan, “Diploma” 1997, 168.<br />
24 Erdrich, “Rom” 1996, 130–132; Enkevort and Zee, “Militaria” 1999, 200; Chauci and<br />
Chassuarii: Tacitus, Annals 1.60; 2.17; cf. Alföldy, Hilfstruppen 1968, 77ff. Names after<br />
tribes: Speidel, Studies I, 1984, 712; Speidel, Denkmäler 1994, p. 49.<br />
25 Cf. Alföldi, Weltkrise 1967, 397ff. Native weapons: Richmond, Army 1982, 20, referring to<br />
cohors I Aelia Dacorum in Britain (RIB 1914) that used its curved Dacian swords there.<br />
26 See p. 43, and also for “Berserkir” meaning bear-warriors.<br />
27 Caesar, Gallic War 4.1.10; 6.21.5; Tacitus, Germania 6: “nudi aut sagulo leves,” cf. 20; 24;<br />
Histories 2.22: “nudis corporibus” (for the term “cohortes” in Tacitus see Kraft, Alen 1951,<br />
38; Callies, “Truppen” 1965, 151f.); Alföldy, Hilfstruppen 1968, 79. Paulus Diaconus,<br />
Historia Langobardorum 1.20. Strangely, Cichorius, Reliefs 1896, 177, says the irregulars<br />
are not <strong>Germanic</strong>; Wolters, “Kampf” 2000, 212, doubts <strong>Germanic</strong> bare-chested warriors<br />
fighting in the later first century altogether—but why reject the testimony of Tacitus and the<br />
whole, vast pictorial record?<br />
28 Buri ambassador: Dio 68.8, see scenes 9 and 27 and my paper “Trajan’s Buri Allies,” 2004.<br />
See p. 60f, this volume.<br />
29 For example, Caesar, Gallic War 7.13.1; 7.65.4; 7.67.5; 7.702ff.; 7.80.6; 8.10.4; 8.13.2; Civil<br />
War 1.83.5; 3.4.3; African War 19.2ff. Tacitus, Histories 2,17,2; 2,22,1 2,88; Annals 1.56.1;<br />
4.73.2; Florus 2.13.48; Herodian 7.8.10; 8.1.3; 8.4.3; Panegyrici Latini 8.12 and 16;<br />
Ammianus 20.4.4; Historia Augusta, Maximini duo 24.5; Triginta tyr. 6.2; Claudian, In<br />
Gildonem, Carmen 15, 371ff. Bang, Germanen 1906, 29; Alföldy, Hilfstruppen 1968, 77;
Notes 186<br />
MacMullen, Responses 1976, 186; Speidel, Studies I 1984, 211ff. In AD 306 Constantius<br />
had Alamanni in his comitatus: Epitoma De Caesaribus 41.3; Speidel, Auxilia 1996, 165f.<br />
Other irregulars in Roman field armies: Josephus, Jewish War 3.126, cf. 5.49; Hyginus 2 and<br />
19, etc.<br />
30 Cheesman, Auxilia 1914, 131; Schumacher and Klumbach, Germanendarstellungen 1935, 8,<br />
no. 32: “Germanische Hilfstruppen auf dem Vormarsch”; Gostar, “Numerus” 1972, 246f.;<br />
Strobel, Dakerkriege 1984, 177ff. Scene 24: Cichorius, Reliefs 1896, 177. By contrast,<br />
Cichorius, Reliefs 1986, 178 takes the auxiliary cohorts in scene 36 to be of the Lower<br />
Moesian army since he (ibid. 190) wants them to fight in scene 38 far from Trajan,<br />
somewhere north of the Danube, a view by and large rejected (Petersen, Kriege 1899, 50ff.;<br />
Strobel, Dakerkriege 1984, 182).<br />
31 See pp. 103ff.<br />
32 Fastest: Caesar, Gallic War 8.36: “Germanosque pedites, summae velocitatis homines”; ibid.<br />
46.2 “pedum…pernicitate gaudent.” Tacitus, Germania 6: “apta et congruente ad equestrem<br />
pugnam velocitate peditum.” Ammianus 29.6.1 (Quadi): “perceleri procinctu.” Two hundred<br />
years later, the Salian Law (long prologue) still states: “Gens Francorum…velox.” Iordanes,<br />
Getica 117, shows how much the speed of a tribe mattered in being hired. Alföldy,<br />
Hilfstruppen 1968, 147: “Irreguläre Aufgebote waren oft mit Aufgaben betraut, die schnell<br />
durchzuführen waren.” Keenest: Seneca, De ira 1.11.3: “Germanis quid est animosius? Quid<br />
ad incursum acrius?”; Josephus, Antiquities 19.1.15 (122); Tacitus, Germania 4: “Corpora<br />
tantum ad impetum valida”; Tacitus, Annals 4.47: “Sugambra cohors, prompta ad pericula”;<br />
Histories 2.21: “Suebi—in prima acie versabantur.” Appian 4.1.3; Herodian 8.1.3;<br />
Ammianus 16.12.46. Tribal troops were attack forces in 53 BC (Caesar, Alexandrian War<br />
29f.), in AD 238 (Herodian 7.8.10; 8.1.3; 8.4.3), as well as in the fourth- and in the sixthcentury<br />
imperial army (Claudianus 26, 580ff; Maurice, Strategikon 2.6.34f.; 11.3.10).<br />
<strong>Germanic</strong> troops equipped for the attack: Beck, “Bewaffnung” 1976, 473. Skillful: Caesar,<br />
Gallic War 1.36; 1.39: “incredibili virtute atque exercitatione in armis”; 4.1: “cotidiana<br />
exercitatione”. Velleius 2.109; 2.118: “versutissimi”; Tacitus, Annals 11.16 (on King<br />
Italicus): “armis equisque in patrium nostrumque morem exercitatus”; Ammianus 16.12.37:<br />
“peritissimi bellatores.” Miltner, “Waffenübung” 1954.<br />
33 Huge and frightful: see p. 88; dread: Tacitus, Histories 2.32 “Germanos quod genus militum<br />
apud hostes atrocissimum sit…ne vultum quidem atque aciem oculorum dicebant ferre<br />
potuisse”; 2.76.1: “Transrhenanas gentes quarum terrore fractae populi Romani vires”; 2.88;<br />
Herodian 7.1.12; Eunapius VI, frg. 37 (Blockley); Zosimus 3.7.1; see Figures 7.1, 7.2, 21.1.<br />
34 Legions slower than auxilia: Tacitus, Histories 2.11: “tarditas inerat. Agmen legionum alae<br />
cohortesque praeveniebant.”<br />
35 Batavi and tribesmen: Tacitus, Annals 4.73: “alam Canninefatem et quot peditum<br />
Germanorum inter nostros merebat circumgredi terga hostium iubet,” see Alföldy,<br />
Hilfstruppen 1968, 147: “teilweise wohl irreguläre Aufgebote”; Tacitus, Histories 1.59; 2.17;<br />
2.22; 2.27f.; 2.32.1; 2.35; 2.43; 2.88, etc.; Trajan’s Column, scene 70. Chatti: Tacitus,<br />
Annals 12.27.2–28; Lucanus: Pharsalia 1, 430–484. Batavi brigaded with gentiles tribesmen<br />
still appear in the Notitia Dignitatum (Oc. 42.34) but there the Batavi are laeti, that is<br />
themselves prisoners of war, probably Franks who had settled in Batavian lands.<br />
36 Speidel, Riding 1994, 22.<br />
37 Crack troops: Tacitus, Histories 2.32.1: “Germanos, quod genus militum apud hostes<br />
atrocissimum sit.” Claim: Tacitus, Annals 3.40.3: “Nihil validum in exercitibus nisi quod<br />
externum.” Peace: Tacitus, Agricola 11; Histories 2.17: “longa pax ad omne servitium<br />
fregerat faciles occupantibus” Vegetins 1.28.6; Demandt, Spätantike 1989, 265ff. Tribal: e.g.<br />
Claudian, 5.106ff.; 15.371ff.; 20.518ff.; 21.152ff.; 28.218ff.<br />
38 Loyalty: Caesar, African War 19; 29; 40. They switched sides only when hope had left, ibid.<br />
53. Suetonius, Galba 43; Tacitus, Annals 13.54, cf. Julian, Misopogon 360C; Maurice,<br />
Strategikon 11.3.16. Wenskus, “Diskussion” 1992. Roman officers: Trajan’s Column, scene
Notes 187<br />
70, see p. 89f. Ethos: Compare Tacitus, Histories 2.66: “Batavis… quos Vitellius agmini suo<br />
iungi ut fidos…iubet.” A more regular strike force of auxilia in AD 70 was that of the Cn.<br />
Domitii Lucanus and Tullus, Alföldy, Hilfstruppen 1968, 131ff. Mixed, hence harder to<br />
discipline: Wenskus, Stammesbildung 1961, 367f. Pride: Tacitus, Histories 2.11 (on the 14th<br />
legion): “Addiderat gloriam Nero eligendo ut potissimos, unde longa illis erga Neronem<br />
fides et erecta in Othonem studia.”<br />
39 Caracalla: Dio 78.5; Speidel, Denkmäler 1994, 414. Aurelian: Dexippus, Scythica, FGH II.A,<br />
no. 100, frag. 7. Constantine: Hoffmann, Bewegungsheer I 1969, 279ff. Theodosius:<br />
Panegyrici Latini 2.32.4f.; AE 1990, 881. Harald: see p. 75.<br />
40 Taking tribal troops along: cf. Tacitus, Histories 1.61 (Germanorum auxilia) and 3.21.2<br />
(Suebi) in AD 69. Speidel, Studies I 1984, 256f.; Studies II 1992, 222. Chatti, Mattiaci:<br />
Tacitus, Germania 29–31. The “copiae barbarorum” to join the usurper Saturninus in AD 88<br />
(Suetonius, Domitian, 6) very likely were Chatti: Mommsen, Geschichte 5, 1886, 137. The<br />
troops could have come from as far away as the Baltic, see Böhme in Geuenich, Franken<br />
1998, 33f. Overlooked: Bang, Germanen 1906; Callies, “Truppen” 1965; Alföldy,<br />
Hilfstruppen 1968; Goldsworthy, Army 1996, 49.<br />
1<br />
WOLVES<br />
1 Plato, Politeia 620; today: Kellert and Wilson, Biophilia 1993. Cave des Trois Frères in<br />
southern France; Höfler, Geheimbünde 1934, 65; Höfler, Siegfried 1961, 32; Kühn,<br />
Felsbilder 1952, 12ff. Cf. Unruh, “Wargus” 1954, 20; Clark and Piggott, Societies 1966, 94f.<br />
(identify); Alföldi, Struktur 1974, 27; Street, “Haushunde” 1999, 24f. Lion-headed figure:<br />
Cunliffe, Prehistory 1994, 50f. Predators: Wilson, in Kellert and Wilson, Biophilia 1993.<br />
2 Mountains, rivers: Book of Songs, poem 263; Ammianus 31.8.5. Trees: Corippus, Iust.<br />
3.172ff.; Atlamál 30: “borr scialdar”; Fáfnismál 36: hildimeiðr; for -viðr see Beck in Hauck,<br />
“Brakteat” 2000, 38; Exeter Book 487: “wer-beamas” (Hauck, “Herrschaftszeichen” 1954,<br />
52); Snorri Sturluson, Heimskringla, Óláfs saga Helga 50; 227. Birds: Widengren,<br />
Feudalismus 1969, 150ff. and fig. 19 (Bactria); Birkhan, Kelten 1997, 1047ff.; Aztec eagle<br />
warriors: Hassig, Warfare 1988, 45ff.<br />
3 Animals: Bowra, Poetry 1952, 97. Africans: Herodotus 7.69. Aztecs: Hassig, Warfare 1988,<br />
90: “Some helmets, made of wood and bone, were highly decorated with feathers, while<br />
others were made of the heads of wild animals—wolves, jaguars, and pumas—over a frame<br />
of wood or over quilted cotton, with the wearer gazing out from the animal’s open jaw”;<br />
Salmoral, America 1990, 192–207; jaguar-warriors are known as early as Olmec times:<br />
Hassig, War 1992, 16f., note 37. Caribs: Whitehead, “Warfare” 1990, 152; Chinese: Book of<br />
Songs, poem 263. Indo-Europeans: Dumézil, Destiny 1970, 139–147. Rome’s <strong>Germanic</strong><br />
“lion” and “panther” guards: Speidel, Denkmäler 1994, 414; lion and panther known in the<br />
second-century among Germani: Werner, Zierscheiben 1941. Austria: see p. 42.<br />
4 Ehrenreich, Blood Rites 1997.<br />
5 Identities: Eliade, Shamanism 1964, 385; Müller, Personennamen 1970, 201; Dumézil,<br />
Destiny 1970, 139–147. Homer: Strasburger, “Aspekt” 1978, 100f. Celts: Evans, Lords<br />
1997, 62. Appian, Civil War 2.151, 632: . Jews did likewise:<br />
Josephus, Jewish War 5.85. Keep former ways: Wright, War 1942.<br />
6 Turks, Mongols: Altheim, Niedergang I 1952, 118; Eisler, Man 1952, 132–144; Alföldi,<br />
Struktur 1974, 69ff. and passim. Contact maintained between Asia and America after 11000<br />
BC: Lévi-Strauss, Tropiques 1977, 281. Wolf (dog) forefather: Thompson, Tales 1929,<br />
167ff. and 347; Koppers, “Hund” 1930; Alföldi, Struktur 1974, 69ff. Warrior myths brought<br />
from Siberia: Dumézil, Destiny 1970, 151ff. Amerindian animal-warriors: McCone, “Hund”
Notes 188<br />
1987, 115; Catlin, Letters 1973, I, e.g. figs. 56, 102; Tlingit masked warrior helmets: Siebert<br />
and Forman, Art 1967; Aztec big-cat warriors: Whitehead, “Warfare” 1990.<br />
7 Turney-High, War 1991, 108f.<br />
8 Indo-Europeans as wolf-warriors: Lincoln, Death 1991, 147–166. Wear the skin: Eliade,<br />
Shamanism 1976, 459f.; Güntert, Geschichten 1912, 20; Alföldi, Struktur 1974, 32f.<br />
Cuetlachtli: Lienzo de Tlaxcala after Innes, Conquistadors 1969, 185 (James Lockhart of<br />
Frazier Park, California, kindly identified the warrior); cf. Catlin, Letters 1973, I, fig. 19-<br />
Folk tales in America: Thompson, Tales 1929, 168 and 347; Europe: Volsung Saga; Grimm,<br />
“Bedeutung” 1865, 213; Höfler, Geheimbünde 1934, 320. Cf. Dronke, Edda 1997, 258;<br />
285f.<br />
9 Wolf-warriors howling: Volsung saga 8; Saxo 115.7f.: “Ululantium more luporum, horrisonas<br />
dedere voces.” Berserks of the sagas, being in part wolf-warriors, also howl: Grettis saga 19;<br />
see p. 44. Howl at a kill: Heinrich, Ravens 1989, 55; rid of human constraints: Lincoln,<br />
Death 1991, 138–146. Shamans: Müller, Personennamen 1970, 200f.; Alföldi, Struktur<br />
1974, 27ff.; Eliade, Shamanism 1976, 385; 459f.; Dumézil, Destiny 1970, 147 (a delightful<br />
hooded shaman: Kühn, Felsbilder 1952, plate 103). North American Indian warriors were<br />
wolves or bears in this sense, e.g. Catlin, Letters 1973, II, 24.<br />
10 McCone, “Hund” 1987; Höfler, Schriften 1992, 42ff.; Beck, “Personennamen” 1986, 304;<br />
Kershaw, God 2000. Eyes: Grimm, “Bedeutung” 1865, 222, and p. 69f, this volume.<br />
11 Lopez, Wolves 1978, 282.<br />
12 Dolon: Iliad 10, 314ff. Euripides, Rhesus, 208–215; Gernet, “Dolon” 1936; Jeanmaire,<br />
Couroi 1939, 400 unplausibly suggests a white wolf-pelt. A wolf-hood made Athena<br />
invisible: Iliad 5, 484f. Greeks, Etruscans, Gauls: Gernet, “Dolon” 1936, 201f.; Alföldi,<br />
Struktur 1974, 83. The Sioux too sought stealth by creeping clad in a wolfskin: Catlin,<br />
Letters 1973, I, 254.<br />
13 Younger men: Polybius 6.22.3; Alföldi, Struktur 1974; McCone, “Hund” 1987. <strong>Germanic</strong><br />
myths of heroic wolf-youths: Volsung saga; Hauck, “Bilddenkmäler” 1976, 591. For Apollo<br />
Lykeios leading the education of the young (whence Lyceum) see Höfler, Geheimbünde<br />
1934, 158; Alföldi, Struktur 1974, 131f.; Gershenson, Apollo 1991; cf. Scheibelreiter,<br />
Tiernamen 1976, 54f.<br />
14 Hattusilis: Kershaw, God2000, 176. Engage feelings: Alföldi, Struktur 1974, passim;<br />
Steinhart, Company 1995, 345; Rheinheimer, “Wolf” 1994. Eisler, Man 1952, 132ff. gives a<br />
long list of nations named after wolves. Dogs: Pliny, Natural History 8, 142ff.; human<br />
children: Singh and Zingg, Wolf-Children 1942 3ff., with photographic documentation.<br />
Feelings: Kellert, Kinship 1997, 152.<br />
15 Eisler, Man 1952, 132ff.; Eliade, Zalmoxis 1970, 13–30 (diminished somewhat for the<br />
Dacians by Iliescu, “Männerbund” 1983); McCone, “Hund” 1987; Davidson, Myths 1988,<br />
78ff.; Mallory and Adams, Encyclopedia 1997, 647f.; Enright, “Warband” 1998, 312; 329;<br />
Kershaw, God 2000. Greek and Italic tribes: Alföldi, Struktur 1974, 119ff.; Persians:<br />
Ammianus 19.1.3; Celts: Diodore 5.30.2f.; Birkhan, Kelten 1997, 735ff; 954f; 1049. Indians<br />
with horse-hoods: Herodotus 7.70; Widengren, Feudalismus 1969, 150f.; Alföldi, Struktur<br />
1974, 96 (Gandharva). Hittites: Kershaw, God 2000, 149ff; 176ff. “Lupakku”: Eisler, Man<br />
1952, 144. Names: Scheibelreiter, Tiernamen 1976, 56. Dog outside: Eisler, Man 1952,<br />
132ff.<br />
16 Rudra: De Vries, Religionsgeschichte II 1957, 95f.; Gonda, Religionen 1982, 85ff.; Kershaw,<br />
God 2000. Iran: Wikander, Männerbund 1938, 64ff.; Widengren, Feudalismus 1969, 15f;<br />
19f. The Sanskrit name Vŗkājina, “Wolfskin” (Pāņini 6.2.165) is the exact equivalent of Old<br />
Norse Ulfheðinn. Scythians: Ivančik, “Guerriers” 1993.<br />
17 Tiryns krater and quote: Vermeule and Karageorghis, Vase Painting 1982, 108–109,<br />
catalogue no. X.1; Lincoln, Death 1991, 137 (taking them for tiger warriors); Drews, End<br />
1993, 146. Prof. Deger-Jalkotzy, Innsbruck, kindly points out to me the name ro-ko, which<br />
may be Lykos or Lykon, “Wolf”.
Notes 189<br />
18 Iliad 16, 156–164 in the Fagles translation; cf. 4.471f. and Vergil, Aeneid 2.355ff. Wolfish<br />
rage : Iliad 8.299; 9.237–239 and 305 (Hector); 21.542f. (Achilles); West, East<br />
Face 1997, 213. Greek wolf-warriors: Iliad 9.459 ( ); Pausanias 4.11.3; Ovid,<br />
Metamorphoses 12.380f.: “Dorylas, qui tempora tecta gerebat/pelle lupi”; Burkert, Homo<br />
1972, 98ff.; Alföldi, Struktur 1974, 33f; 82f; 131f; McCone, “Hund” 1987, 122; Lincoln,<br />
Death 1991, 131–137. Sparta: Jeanmaire, Couroi 1939, 463ff., esp. 550ff. Apollo the wolf<br />
god: Bowra, Poetry 1952, 398; Unruh, “Wargus” 1954, 10; Alföldi, Struktur 1974, 132;<br />
Gershenson, Apollo 1991. Greek heroes with wolf names or wolf myths: Gershenson, Apollo<br />
1991, 67ff.; Kershaw, God 2000, 162ff. Animal-rage warriors nevertheless differed from<br />
blindly raging amok runners: Alföldi, Struktur 1974, 34; also p. 44f, this volume.<br />
19 Alföldi, Struktur 1974, 129ff; 187. Vergil, Aeneid 7.688: “fulvosque lupi de pelle<br />
galeros/tegmen habuit capiti: vestigia nuda sinistri instituere pedis, crudus tegit altera perro.”<br />
See p. 72; Binder, Aussetzung 1964, 30f.; Alföldi, Struktur 1974, 184ff. Hirpi Sorani:<br />
Alföldi, Struktur 1974, 77; 187f.; Kershaw, God 2000, 146ff. Etruscans: Vergil, Aeneid<br />
11.679ff.: “Caput ingens oris hiatus et malae texere lupi/cum dentibus albis”; Alföldi,<br />
Struktur 1974, 83.<br />
20 Vergil, Aeneid 1.275: “lupae fulvo nutricis tegmine laetus.” Propertius 4.10.20: “galea<br />
hirsuta compta lupina iuba.” Livy 1.12.9: “Romulus cum globo ferocissimorum iuvenum.”<br />
Alföldi, Struktur 1974, 81; Hauck, “Bilddenkmäler” 1976, 591; McCone, “Hund” 1987, 130.<br />
<strong>Ancient</strong> wolf-spirit and Luperci in Rome: Dumézil, Religion 1970, 346ff.; Alföldi, Struktur<br />
1974, 34; 80ff; 86ff. Hannibal’s time: Roman wolf-warriors: Polybius 6.22.3; Walbank,<br />
Commentary 1957, 703. Alföldi, “Hasta” 1959, 63, wrongly took Republican denarii to show<br />
wolfskins: the coins portray the goat-hood of Juno Sospita; cf. Eliade, Zalmoxis 1970, 13–<br />
30.<br />
21 Celts: Birkhan, Kelten 1997, 344ff; 356ff; 379ff; 735ff; 1049. Wolves called dogs: McCone,<br />
“Hund” 1987, 106; Birkhan, Kelten 1997, 379–382; Scheibelreiter, Tiernamen 1976, 55f.;<br />
Celtic dogs bred from wolves: Pliny, Natural History 8.148.<br />
22 No hint of the Column’s wolf- and bear-warriors is found in Jahn, Bewaffnung 1916;<br />
Delbrück, History 1990 (=1921); Meuli, “Maske” 1933; Gundel, Dakerkriege 1937; Blaney,<br />
“Berserkr” 1972, 175f.; Strobel, Untersuchungen 1984; Ziegler, “Oðin” 1985; Kershaw,<br />
God2000, etc. Höfler, Schriften 1992 (= 1940), 129 refers to Cichorius’ treatment of scene<br />
36, but only for “Fellhüllen,” and does not follow it up. Luckily, this also kept Hitlerites<br />
from claiming the warrior styles for their dream-history. Altheim, Niedergang I, 1952,<br />
116ff., greatly to his credit, gives wolf-warriors their due, yet misses scene 36 of the<br />
Column. Lepper and Frere, Column 1988, 84, report nothing.<br />
23 Tacitus, Agricola 36.1: “rem ad mucrones et manus adducerent, quod est ipsis vetustate<br />
militiae exercitatum.”<br />
24 Standard-bearers: Pollen, according to Cichorius, Reliefs 1896, 178. Antesignani: Vegetius<br />
2.16. Guards: Froehner, Colonne 1865, 101. Cichorius, Reliefs 1896, 178 with reference to<br />
his “systematischer Teil” (never published) takes them to be a German cohort. The soldier<br />
with a pelt-hooded shield in scene 12, whom Cichorius held to be of the same unit as that in<br />
scene 36, is a legionary standard bearer (his standard omitted as in scene 106), for auxiliaries<br />
on the Column are not builders and do not direct legionaries.<br />
25 Mythological: Eliade, Shamanism 1964, 640. Bare shelves: Puhvel, Mythology 1987, 191.<br />
26 Hittites: Alföldi, Struktur 1974, 33 and 82 with plate 2. Armilustrium: Crous,<br />
“Waffenpfeiler” 1933, 76; 102. Gundestrup cauldron third century AD: Birkhan, Germanen<br />
1970, 170ff; 357. Initiation: McCone, “Hund” 1987, 111; Kershaw, God 2000, 196ff; 256. A<br />
good picture of the wolf scene is in Piggott, Druids 1975, 78.<br />
27 Tacitus, Histories 2.88.3: “Nec minus saevum spectaculum erant ipsi, tergis ferarum et<br />
ingentibus telis horrentes.” They would be the Transrhenani of Tacitus, Histories 2.93.1; cf.<br />
1.52.3; 1.61.2; 2.22.1; 2.32.1; 2.35.1. The Batavian cohorts were not with them, as they had
Notes 190<br />
already gone home: Tacitus, Histories 2.69; Bang, Germanen 1906, 58; Heubner, Historien<br />
1968, 302. Keppie, Legions 2000, takes them for legionaries, but their huge weapons give<br />
them away as Germani (Tacitus, Histories 5.18; Annals 1.64; 2.14; 2.21; Lucanus 6.259; Dio<br />
38.49.2; Ammianus 16.12.24; Hamberg, “Germanen” 1936, fig. 9).<br />
28 Höfler, Schriften 1992, 71. German weavers’ skills: Todd, Barbarians 1987, 115f; Speidel,<br />
Decorations II, 1997, 232. Much, Germania 1967, 272 sees here fur coats. Italic fur-bearing<br />
soldiers, though: Silius Italicus, Punica 8.523; 570. Fur as part of Roman camp dress in the<br />
north: Tacitus, Annals 2.13.1.<br />
29 Tribal wolf-warrior youths: Jeanmaire, Couroi 1939, 540ff.; Bremmer, “Suodales” 1982,<br />
141; McCone, “Hund” 1987; Gershenson, Apollo 1991, 116 (“age-mates”); Kershaw, God<br />
2000. Chosen group: the Arcadian “wolves,” Pliny, Natural History 8.81, etc.; Jeanmaire,<br />
Couroi 1939, 553; also p. 194, this volume. Twelve: Helgisaga Óláfs konungs Haraldssonar<br />
68f.; Blaney, “Berserkr” 1972, 86; Hrólfs saga Kraka; Güntert, Geschichten 1912; Höfler,<br />
Runenstein 1952, 303ff.; also pp. 44 and 75, this volume. In the Volsung saga kings<br />
themselves are wolf-warriors.<br />
30 Animal standards (“ferarum imagines”): Tacitus, Histories 4.22.2. Wulfenus: Nesselhauf,<br />
“Inschriften” 1937, nos. 245ff.; 251. Birkhan, “Germanen” 1970, 379. (W)ulfus: CIL III,<br />
1839. See also the joint wolf- and bear-names discussed on p. 41. Ulpius: CIL XIII, 11810;<br />
Dessau, Inscriptiones 1892–1916, 7080 additions; Syme, Tacitus II 1958, 786; Wiegels,<br />
“Ulpius” 1999- Honored: Syme, Tacitus II 1958, 786. Meant wolf: Pokorny, Wörterbuch<br />
1959, 1178f.; Cagnat, Inscriptiones 1911, vol. 3, no. 20 (Cios, Bithynia); an Ulpius Lupus,<br />
perhaps a Batavian, is found in Speidel, Denkmäler 1994, 35; also AE 1990, 516. A new<br />
Batavian Lupus of Trajan’s time: Birley, Garrison 2002, 100. Woodhound: Müller,<br />
Personennamen 1970, 69; 212; Birkhan, “Germanen” 1970, 378f.; Düwel, Runenkunde<br />
2001, 2; cf. Förstemann, Namenbuch 1900, 1509: Walthun. Indo-European names: Schmitt,<br />
“Altertumskunde” 2000, 400. Wolf: Müller, Personennamen 1970, 201 and 210f. Feared,<br />
etc.: Unruh, “Wargus” 1954, 9; Müller, Personennamen 1970, 191ff. Dragons: Müller,<br />
Personennamen 1970, 188ff. Be like them: e.g. Ingiald in Snorri Sturluson, Heimskringla,<br />
Ynglinga saga 34.<br />
31 Wilson, Diversity 1992, 348–351.<br />
32 Julian’s Auxilia: Hoffmann, Bewegungsheer 1969, 159. Shield badges authentic, though<br />
sometimes slipped from their place: Speidel, Studies II, 1992, 414–418; contra: Grigg,<br />
“Inconsistency” 1984. Franks and Alamanni the main contributors to the fourth-century<br />
Rhine army: Waas, Germanen 1971, 9; Alamanni: Strohecker, Germanentum 1965, 30–53<br />
(p. 38: not prisoners but volunteers). For the animal on the first badge of row 4, see p. 53.<br />
33 A change from tribal youths to the warband of a leader: Kershaw, God 2000, 131f. Wargs: ŗg<br />
Veda 1.42 (Maurer, Pinnacles 1986, 188); Avesta: Wikander, Vayu 1941, 138; Eisler, Man<br />
1952, 145; Unruh, “Wargus” 1954; Widengren, Feudalismus 1969, 15; 20; cf. 39: “helper”<br />
or “wolf”; Eliade, Zalmoxis 1970, 16; Gerstein, Warg 1974, 132; Campanile, “Meaning”<br />
1979; McCone, “Hund” 1987, 119. Outlaws: Schmidt-Wiegand, “Spuren” 1994, 258;<br />
Gerstein, Warg 1974, 155; McCone, “Hund” 1987; Campanile, “Meaning” 1979. On the<br />
sociological problem see Wenskus, Stammesbildung 1961, 372f.; Höfler,<br />
“Verwandlungskulte” 1973, 250. According to Unruh, “Wargus” 1954, 38f., “wargus” came<br />
to denote the criminal, “ulf” the warrior wolf. Romans: CIL XIII 6429; Dessau, Inscriptiones<br />
1892, 395=RIU 1127–1137; Dessau, Inscriptiones 1892, 724. Sidonius Epistulae 6.4.1:<br />
“Vargorum (hoc enim nomine indigenas latrunculos nuncupant) superventus,” cf. Unruh,<br />
“Wargus” 1954, 7. Anglo-Saxon Vearg: Grimm, “Bedeutung” 1865, 204; Saxo 137, with<br />
commentary by Davidson, Saxo 1979. Cf. Slavic vrag (Davidson, Saxo 1979).<br />
34 Seneca, De Ira 2.15.4: “Deinde omnes istae feritate liberae gentes leonum luporumque<br />
ritu…” Seneca knew little of wolves when he wrote “as they will not obey so they cannot<br />
rule”; see Steinhart, Company 1995, 345. Ammianus 31.7.9: “Verebantur hostes et male<br />
sanos eorum ductores ut rabidas feras”. Iordanes, Getica 24: “pugnabant beluina saevitia.”
Notes 191<br />
Opus imperfectum in Matthaeum (fifth/sixth century; Migne, Patrologia Graeca 1857ff., 56,<br />
626): “Sicut solent et barbarae gentes nomina filiis imponere ad devastationem respicientia<br />
bestiarum ferarum, vel rapacium volucrum, gloriosum putantes filios tales habere ad bellum<br />
idoneos et insonientes in sanguinem.” Beck, Ebersignum 1965, 98f.; Müller, Personennamen<br />
1970, 178. See also the “wolf” of Vegetius 4,23,3.<br />
35 Thracians: Herodotus 5.1; also the Cimmerian wolfhounds in war: Gordon, “Swords” 1953,<br />
76. Celtic war dogs: Birkhan, “Germanen” 1970, 345ff.; above, note 21. Cimbri, allies:<br />
Pliny, Natural History 8.61.143; 148. Hounds like wolves symbolic: Ninck, Wodan 1935,<br />
99; Beck, Ebersignum 1965, 77, note 37.1; Birkhan, “Germanen” 1970, 353ff.; 379; cf.<br />
Höfler, Geheimbünde 1934, 41ff.; 55ff.; Paul, Wolf 1981, 86ff Kershaw, God 2000, 133ff.<br />
Indo-European: Birkhan, “Germanen” 1970, 345ff.; McCone, “Hund” 1987. Greek houndtopped<br />
helmets: Alföldi, Struktur 1974, 33f.; Celtic dog-helmets: Birkhan, Kelten 1997, 209;<br />
1108; 1125; McCone, “Hund” 1987, 104f.; 119f. A Pictish hound-warrior is seen on the<br />
ninth-century stone from Gellyburn, Murthly, in the Scottish Museum, Edinburgh. Hounddragon<br />
standards: Trajan’s Column, basis. Dacians=Wolves or Hounds: Pokorny,<br />
Wörterbuch 1959, 235; Eliade, Zalmoxis 1970. In AD 250 on a coin of Decius (RIC IV,<br />
101c) the Roman province of Dacia holds a wolf- or hound-dragon standard. Longobards:<br />
see p. 23.<br />
36 For example, Saxo 115.7f, where they howl together.<br />
37 Vegetius 2.3.5: “Minor sudor, et maturiora sunt praemia.” Ammianus 18.2.6: “Auxiliarii<br />
milites semper munia spernentes.” Speidel, “Auxilia” 1996.<br />
38 Gregory of Tours, Historiae 1.32 (Persecution of Christians by Valerianus, AD 257–262):<br />
“Horum tempore et Chrocus ille Alamannorum rex, commoto exercito, Gallias pervagavit.”<br />
The version in Fredegar, Chron. II.60 that makes the same Crocus King of the Vandals is<br />
muddled, see Schmidt, Ostgermanen 1969, 109, note 3 (Schmidt, however, takes Gregory<br />
for being even more mistaken—wrongly, it seems, cf. Castritius, “Krokus” 2001). The elder<br />
unhistoric: Schmidt, Westgermanen 1970, 234; 248; Buchner, Gregor 1955, I, 37. Historic:<br />
Loreto, “Penetrazione” 1994; Demandt, Staatsformen 1995, 552f.; Castritius, “Semnonen”<br />
1998, 362. For the coming of the Alamanni in Caracalla’s time see Becker, Rom 1992, 322ff.<br />
The younger Crocus: Aurelius Victor, Epitoma 41.3 (Pichlmayr 166): (Constantine, at the<br />
death of Constantius in 306) “quo mortuo cunctis qui aderant annitentibus, sed praecipue<br />
Croco Alamannorum rege, auxilii gratia Constantium comitato, imperium capit.” (Of course,<br />
to Eusebius, Vita Constantini 1.24, it was god himself who chose Constantine.) Speidel,<br />
“Auxilia” 1996, 165. Misread: Schönfeld, Wörterbuch 1965, 78; Müller, “Wolfhetan” 1967,<br />
204. Aurelius Victor: Epitoma 41.3 in the Teubner edition 1966 by Fr. Pichlmayr; Reichert,<br />
Lexikon I, 1987, 227; 576 (Rucco); II 1990, 36; 549.<br />
39 Hauck, Namenbuch “Adelskultur” 1957, 17; Hauck, “Mittelalters” 1957, 368; Förstemann,<br />
1900, 1655; and especially Müller, “Wolfhetan” 1967, 204. If Hroc had a long o, it would<br />
mean “crow”: thus Kaufmann, Personennamen 1968, 199, who unconvincingly explains the<br />
double c in forms such as Chroccus and Chrocchus as “expressive gemination” rather than as<br />
a sign that the o is short. Kaufmann’s result is accepted by Reichert, Lexikon II, 1990, 549,<br />
while Müller, Personennamen 1970, 58 hesitates about it (on pp. 212ff he still takes<br />
Wolfhroc and Hroccolf for wolf-warriors and Hedinus and Bialfi as shortened from<br />
Wolfhetan etc.).<br />
40 Ammianus 27.10.3; 30.7.7. Reichert, Lexikon I 1987, 788 (Vithigabi); Kershaw, God 2000,<br />
159.<br />
41 Wolf-warrior kings: Romulus, the Irish Cormac mac Airt (McCone, “Hund” 1987, 138);<br />
Sigmund and Sinfiotli in the Volsung saga (see p. 23). Thorfinn, earl of Orkney, raiding<br />
England at some time before 1033, is “wolf-lord” in Orkneyinga saga 24. For the high rank<br />
of Norwegian dog-warriors see Höfler, Schriften 1992, 56. Compare Achilles’ captains<br />
flaunting wolfishness, see p. 16. Alamannic Wolfhrocs: Müller, “Wolfhetan” 1967, 203.
Notes 192<br />
Wolf names among Alamanni: Förstemann, Namenbuch 1900, 1655; Müller,<br />
Personennamen 1970, 212f.<br />
42 Höfler, Runenstein 1952, 330–333; Höfler, Schriften 1992, 83ff.; 102ff. Cf. Steuer, “Helm”<br />
1987, 222; Steuer, “Gefolgschaftsproblem” 1992, 208. As the name Heoden in the poem<br />
Widsith means “wearer of a wolf- or dog-skin,” so Heoden’s tribe were the Glomman<br />
(“Barkers”): Widsith 21; 69; Much, Osten 1920, 154ff.; 161; doubted somewhat by Beck,<br />
“Personennamen” 1986, 313f.; see also p. 33, this volume. Compare the Wolfings: Beck,<br />
“Personennamen” 1986, 313.<br />
43 Wolf-forebears, robbery: e.g. Italic Hirpini-wolves, of whom Servius, Aen. 9.785 says “lupos<br />
imitarentur…id est rapto viverent” (Scheibelreiter, Tiernamen 1976, 51). Altheim,<br />
Niedergang I, 1952, 118; Alföldi, Struktur 1974, 127ff. and passim; McCone, “Hund” 1987,<br />
127ff.; Kershaw, God 2000, 133ff. The myth of the wolf-forebear also reached Southeast<br />
Asia, Palaeosiberia, and North America: Koppers, “Hund” 1930; Gershenson, Apollo 1991,<br />
116 and 123. <strong>Germanic</strong> Wulfings: Beowulf 461; 471; Grimm, “Bedeutung” 1865, 206.<br />
Alamanni: Wenskus, Stammesbildung 1961, 494ff.; Steuer, “Theorien” 1998. Iuthungi: AE<br />
1993, 1231 (= 1996, 1182–3); Dexippus FGH<br />
100.6.18f.: .Contra:<br />
Castritius, “Mischlinge” 2002.<br />
44 No nation: Wais, Alamannen 1943, 16f.; Wenskus, Stammesbildung 1961, 505f.; 509ff.;<br />
Geuenich, Geschichte 1997, 41. Rag-tag: Agathias 1.6.3:<br />
; Cato, Origines fr. 20 (Peter): “convenae”; for =<br />
“convenae” see Strabo 4.2.1; cf. Plutarch, Romulus 9.2; Strabo 5.3.2 (230c); Norden,<br />
Urgeschichte 1974, 495f.; Alföldi, Struktur 1974, 119; 130f. Praenestines as “collecticii”:<br />
Scholia Veron. Aeneid 7.681 (after Alföldi, Struktur 1974, 189); Kershaw, God 2000, 136.<br />
Indo-European: Alföldi, Struktur 1974, 120; Campanile, “Meaning” 1979; Kershaw, God<br />
2000, 133ff. Compare the foreigners added by the Spartan founders Eurystheus and Prokles:<br />
Strabo 8.5.5; Wagner, “Dioskuren” 1960, 237.<br />
45 Lombards: McCone, “Hund” 1987, 129. Hound-, but also wolf-warriors: Kershaw, God<br />
2000, 151ff. Paul the Deacon, Historia I.7 (MGH) “Erant siquidem tunc Winnili universi<br />
iuvenili aetate florentes, sed numero perexigui, quippe qui unius non nimiae amplitudinis<br />
insulae tertia solummodo particula fuerint.” I.11: “Simulant se in castris suis habere<br />
cynocephalos, id est canini capitis homines. Divulgant aput hostes, hos pertinaciter bella<br />
gerere, humanum sanguinem bibere et, si hostem adsequi non possint, proprium potare<br />
cruorem.” For <strong>Germanic</strong> formal equivalents of cynocephali see Müller, Personennamen<br />
1970, 190 and 221. There is, of course, much cliché here, see Ammianus 27.4.9f, and<br />
Wiedemann, “Men” 1986, but compare Strabo 291 and Velleius 2.106.2. The dog-warriors<br />
are reported right: Höfler, Gehetmbünde 1934, 187; Schriften 1992, 49ff. and 58ff.; Hauck,<br />
“Lebensnormen” 1955, 206ff.; De Vries, Religionsgeschichte II, 1957, 37; Müller,<br />
Personennamen 1970, 69ff.; 190; 205.<br />
46 Volsung saga 8: “konungasynir.” Heavy golden armrings as a mark of royalty: Werner,<br />
“Armring” 1980. Blood: Helgakviða Hundingsbana in fyrri 36, 9f.<br />
47 Herodotus (1.122) told such a tale (with a wolf foster-mother) of the Persian Achaemenian<br />
dynasty, with many of the same details as in the myth of Romulus. The link between Cyrus<br />
and Romulus was seen already by Pompeius Trogus 44.4.12; Binder, Aussetzung 1964;<br />
Alföldi, Struktur 1974, 134ff.; Kershaw, God 2000, 133ff. Epics: Wolfdieterich, cf. Grimm,<br />
“Bedeutung” 1865, 206ff.<br />
48 Gershenson, Apollo 1991, 116 and 123f., argues that wolf-warriors founding new nations<br />
were young because the wolf was the animal of initiation rites.<br />
49 Höfler, Schriften 1992, 42–82: Dante’s symbol of the fierce veltro-hound, Inferno 1, 101ff.<br />
will set the world aright, Paradiso 17, 76ff.; Altheim, Niedergang I, 1952, 116; Hauck,<br />
“Lebensnormen” 1955, 208f.; de Vries, Religionsgeschichte II, 1957, 37; Höfler, Siegfried
Notes 193<br />
1961, 30f. Myths: Hauck, “Lebensnormen” 1955, 206ff. Left: Dumézil, Mythes 1939, 65–78;<br />
Hauck, “Lebensnormen” 1955; Wenskus, Stammesbildung 1961, 485–494; Bremmer,<br />
“Suodales” 1982; McCone “Hund” 1987, 129; Höfler, Schriften 1992, 42–82. All fail to<br />
mention wolf- or dog-warriordom as part of the youthful land-seeker myth of the Lombards<br />
and Alamanni. Arcadians: Pliny, Natural History 8.81; Przyluski, “Loups-garons” 1940, 129<br />
and passim, takes this to be pre-Indo-European. Lucani: Iustinus, Epitoma 2.1.4ff.:<br />
“confluente…multitudine”; Alföldi, Struktur 1974, 130f. Other wolf-warriors living by<br />
robbery (though not seeking new land): Sigurd and Sinfiotli in the Volsung saga, see p. 35f,<br />
this volume. Praeneste: see pp. 14 and 22. Banished: Alföldi, Struktur 1974, 127ff.;<br />
Campanile, “Meaning” 1979.<br />
50 Robbery: Ammianus 16.5.17: “raptu vivere.” Horsfall, “Romulus” 1971, 1113. Ibor and<br />
Agio: Origo Gentis Langobardorum (MGH Script. Rer. Lang.); Paul the Deacon, Historia<br />
1.3; Müller, Personennamen 1970, 157. Hengist and Horsa: Bede, HE 2.5, cf. Hauck,<br />
“Polytheismus” 1994, 237. Raus and Raptus: Dio 71.12, cf. de Vries, Religionsgeschichte II,<br />
1957, 249ff. Twin kings: Ward, Theme 1970; Chaney, Cult 1970, 9; Alföldi, Struktur 1974,<br />
151ff.; also p. 122, this volume. Twins leading youthful land-seekers: Wagner, “Dioskuren”<br />
1960, 229ff.; McCone, “Hund” 1987, 129; Wenskus, “Religion” 1994, 222. Old Irish wolfwarrior<br />
bands: McCone, “Hund” 1987, 105.<br />
51 Caesar, Gallic War 6.23.6–8.<br />
52 Tacitus, Germania 14; Bede, HE 3.14. Outlaws, riff-raff: Caesar, Gallic War 3.17.4, speaks<br />
of such “deperditi homines, latronesque,” and while he does not use the word convenae, he<br />
uses convenerat. Ziegler, “Oðin” 1985, 85ff.; Kershaw, God 2000, 130. Celts: Bremmer,<br />
“Suodales” 1982, 140ff. Such recruitment is well parallelled among North-Amercian<br />
Indians: Turney-High, War 1991, 87 (though with mistakes about the Suebi); Catlin, Letters<br />
1973, II, 242. Germani: Wenskus, Stammesbildung 1961, 368ff. Kershaw, God 2000, 131<br />
rightly wants them to be “cultic initiatory brotherhoods.” To Romans, Longobards and<br />
Alamanni were wilder than others: Velleius Paterculus 2.106.2: “Langobardi gens etiam<br />
Germana ferocitate ferocior.” Alamanni: Panegyrici Latini 4.2.1; Ammianus 27.10.5; 28.5.9;<br />
Symmachus, Oratio 1.17; 2.4 (“ferox natio”); Alföldy, Krise 1989, 196.<br />
53 Confederation: Mommsen, History 1996, 274f. Brought together: Wenskus, Stammesbildung<br />
1961, 494–512. Many kings: Ammianus 16.12.1.<br />
54 In 1945 the Russians stole the scabbard in Berlin; they have yet to return it. A photograph of<br />
a cast (less precise) is in the Römisch-Germanisches, Zentralmseum, Mainz, see Fuchs,<br />
Alamannen 1997, 437 (size 27.4×7.4 cm). Naue, “Schwertscheide” 1889; Garscha,<br />
“Schwertscheide” 1939; Hauck, “Adelskultur” 1957, 11ff.<br />
55 Naue, “Schwertscheide” 1889, 120, sees here a “Waffenrock.” The parallel lines of fur are<br />
horizontal, both on the tail and on the back, contra Naue, ibid. Hauck, “Adelskultur” 1957,<br />
12, assumes that the fur reaches to below the knees: “bei dem Bruchstück die gleiche<br />
Zottenmusterung wiederkehrt, die bei der oben ganz erhaltenen Gestalt des Wolfskriegers<br />
benützt ist, um seinem Gewand Fellcharackter zu geben”; Höfler, “Berserker” 1976, 300,<br />
“knielanger Mantel.” The tail, as a comparison with the Torslunda die (Figure 1.6) will<br />
show, is neither a seax (thus Naue, “Schwertscheide” 1889, 120) nor “a quiver, filled with<br />
arrows” (Garscha, “Schwertscheide” 1939, 3).<br />
56 Shoes: the shoe vessel from Mainz-Herchtsheim, Wieczorek, Franken II 1996, 679. Lamellar<br />
armor: Naue, “Schwertscheide” 1889, 120: “Bronzeplättchen.” Ring-swords: Steuer,<br />
“Ringschwert” 1987, 213; Steuer, “Gefolgschaftsproblem” 1992, 208. Knee-long hauberks:<br />
Fuchs, Alamannen 1997, 238 (Gammertingen); 408 (Niederstotzingen); in the Middle Ages:<br />
Contamine, War 1984, 184ff.<br />
57 Härke, “Organization” 1997. Compare berserks, p. 75, this volume.<br />
58 Naue, “Schwertscheide” 1889, 119: “das erhaltene Fragment der Silberplatte”; Garscha,<br />
“Schwertscheide” 1939, 3f.: “bei dem aus einem Stück geschnittenen Scheidenbelag.”
Notes 194<br />
59 Bowl or box: Garscha, “Schwertscheide” 1939, 3f.: “Es will scheinen als ob das Blech<br />
ursprünglich für andere Zwecke bestimmt gewesen wäre”; Hauck, “Adelskultur” 1957, 23:<br />
“Kanne, Eimer.” Steuer, “Ringschwert” 1987, 205, adds “Trinkhorn”; Böhner, “Eschwege”<br />
1991, 718: “etwa die Verkleidung eines Kästchens… zerschnitten und wieder<br />
zusammengesetzt.”<br />
60 Spear: Hauck, “Adelskultur” 1957, 12ff. with fig. 5. Unlike Hauck, however, I find no<br />
meaningful “Glättungspuren” around the upper wolf-warrior, on either the photograph of the<br />
Berlin Museum or the galvano cast published in Fuchs, Alamannen 1997, 437.<br />
61 Bruce-Mitford, Aspects 1974, 198ff.; Arwidsson, Valsgärde 1977, 21ff.; Hauck,<br />
“Polytheismus” 1994, 208ff.; Böhner, “Eschwege” 1991, 707ff.<br />
62 Gutenstein scenes: 5.5×7.5 cm, compare with 5.2×5.6 cm (Valsgärde 7), 5.2× 5.8 cm (Sutton<br />
Hoo 2), 6.2×7 cm (Torslunda) and 5.5×5.4 (Pliezhausen). The Gutenstein dies (including<br />
four embossed borders of about 3 mm) thus each measured about 14×7.5 cm. The grave 12<br />
helmet is illustrated in Böhner, “Eschwege” 1991, 719.<br />
63 The golden Pliezhausen disc also comes from an Alamannic Vendel helmet, see Chapter 17,<br />
162f. Alamannic and Swedish art linked: ibid.<br />
64 Vendel crossband helmets: see p. 163. No three-figure scenes: the Obrigheim foil (Figure<br />
1.5), restored by Hauck “Adelskultur” 1957 as a three-figure scene (doubted by Böhner,<br />
“Eschwege” 1991, 717f.), is too small for a Vendel helmet and thus has no bearing on<br />
whether the Gutenstein scene had two or three figures. Corresponding two-figure scenes:<br />
helmet from Sutton Hoo, Bruce-Mitford, Sutton Hoo 1978, 186ff. Helmets from Vendel,<br />
graves 12 and 14: Böhner, “Eschwege” 1991, 719. The Torslunda scene is even closer to the<br />
Gutenstein scene than suggested in the restoration drawing by Hauck, “Adelskultur” 1957,<br />
fig. 5, for above the foot of the left-facing warrior seem to be traces of the butt-end of<br />
Woden’s spear, which therefore, as on the Torslunda die, points upward (Figure 1.6). Also,<br />
what to Hauck, “Adelskultur” 1957, 14, seemed to be “eine weitere verdrückte Speerspitze,”<br />
looks like the toe of Woden as on the Torslunda die. If so, Woden there faced left.<br />
65 Thumb: contra Sutton Hoo Böhner, “Eschwege” 1991, 718; but the Sutton Hoo helmet foils,<br />
Bruce-Mitford, 1978, 189, also have outsize thumbs. Dance spurring on: see pp. 117ff.<br />
Einheriar: Hauck, “Adelskultur” 1957, 17f.; Böhner, “Eschwege” 1991, 718. Offering one’s<br />
weapons to join a following: Formulae Marculfi, MGH Form. 55: “una cum arma sua in<br />
manu nostra trustem et fidelitatem nobis visus est coniurasse.” Mythical heroes: Hauck,<br />
“Wiedergabe” 1981, 168ff.; Böhner, “Spangenhelme” 1994, 544. Heroes pledging<br />
themselves to Woden: Höfler, Runenstein 1952, 83ff.; Beck, Bilddenkmäler 1964, 41ff. Cf.<br />
Steuer, “Ringschwert” 1987, 223.<br />
66 Bruce-Mitford, Sutton Hoo 1978, 101; Böhner and Quast, “Grabfunde” 1994, 397 (Vendel<br />
1); Anwidsson, Valsgärde, 1977, figs. 25–6; Böhner, “Spangenhelme” 1994, 534, fig. 3.<br />
67 Tacitus, Germania 13f.; Bede, HE 3.14. Snorri Sturluson, Heimskringla, Óláfs saga Helga<br />
215 shows the pride warband leaders took in having outstanding warriors joining them.<br />
68 Main weapon handed over: Hauck, “Wiedergabe” 1981, 168ff.; Steuer, “Ringschwert” 1987,<br />
205; Böhner, “Spangenhelme” 1994, 544. Vendel grave 14: Hauck, “Adelskultur” 1957, 17<br />
and plate VIII; Böhner, “Eschwege” 1991, fig. 30.<br />
69 This is slightly less than Steuer’s “Reichsideologie” (“Ringschwert” 1987)—there was no<br />
Alamannic “Reich” in the sixth century.<br />
70 Woden as a wolf-warrior: IK 65 (Gudbrandsdalen); cf. IK 7 (Års, fig. 26) and Heimskringla,<br />
Ynglinga saga 6. Ziegler, “Oðin” 1985.<br />
71 Contra: Hauck, “Adelskultur” 1957, 17. On the Vendel 14 helmet the dead would be rather<br />
too many.<br />
72 Höfler, Runenstein 1952, 83ff.<br />
73 Alamannic names: Müller, “Wolfhetan” 1967, 210f.; among the early Saxons and Anglo-<br />
Saxons, wolf-warrior names are rare. Anti-Roman stance: Ammianus 26.5.7: “gentes<br />
immanissimas”; Fuchs, Alamannen 1997, 122ff.; Scardigli, “Problem” 1999
Notes 195<br />
74 Gait: Müller, “Wolfhetan” 1967, 207f. Vulfolaic: Förstemann, Namenbuch 1900, 1655, cf.<br />
995f.; Beck, “Stanzen” 1968, 245ff.; Kaufmann, Personennamen 1968, 223; Reichert,<br />
Lexikon I, 1987, 796. The earliest example comes from AD 585: Gregory of Tours, Historiae<br />
368.6 and 380.26 (a Lombard). From the seventh century onwards the name Vulfolaic is<br />
often found: Förstemann, Namenbuch 1900, 1655. Lykormas: Eisler, Man 1952, 142.<br />
Children raised by wolves could run very fast on all fours: Singh and Zingg, Wolf-Children<br />
1942, 30. Eliade, Shamanism 1964, 460f. War dance: see p. 123.<br />
75 Auxilia Palatina shield badges often blazon <strong>Germanic</strong> religious symbols: Altheim,<br />
Niedergang II, 1952, 345ff.; Alföldi, “Cornuti” 1959. Altheim, Literatur 1948, 148f. and<br />
Niedergang II, 1952, 348ff. takes the many sun symbols as a reflex of Aurelian’s sun<br />
worship, but they may be <strong>Germanic</strong>, see Hauck, “Herrschaftszeichen” 1954, 38, especially in<br />
view of the likelihood that Maximian on the Rhine, not Aurelian, raised the first Auxilia<br />
Palatina (Hoffmann, Bewegungsheer I, 1969, 155ff.).<br />
76 Agathias 1.7; 2.1.7. Böhner and Quast, “Grabfunde” 1994.<br />
77 Names: Müller, Personennamen 1970, 139–143. New homelands: Höfler,<br />
“Verwandlungskulte” 1973, 252f. Alamannic cult of Woden: Höfler, Geheimbünde 1934,<br />
78. Ethos: Werner, “Heilsbilder” 1963.<br />
78 Oberwarngau, grave 171; Prähistorische Staatssammlung, München, inv. 1953, 308;<br />
unpublished. Such belt-ends are datable to AD 640–670: Siegmund, “Gürtel” 1999, 172, fig.<br />
9.<br />
79 Heilsbilder: Beck, Ebersignum 1965, 53f. Insignia: Fuchs, Alamannen 1997, 282f. Bavarians<br />
as relatives of Alamanni: Geuenich, Geschichte 1997, 90f. Wolf-names: Müller,<br />
“Wolfhetan” 1967, passim.<br />
80 Libanius: Oratio 59.131 (on Franks): . Chedinus: Gregory of Tours,<br />
Historiae 485; for the related Hiadnings and Old Norse Heðinn; also see p. 33, this volume.<br />
There are some Frankish wolf-warrior names (Müller, “Wolfhetan” 1967), but Chrocus is<br />
Alamannic and not from West Francia (Gregory of Tours, Historiae 24–26), pace Müller,<br />
“Wolfhetan” 1967, 202. Gregory: Unruh, “Wargus” 1954, 20f.<br />
81 Steuer, “Ringschwert” 1987, 205 suggests Obrigheim on the Neckar river rather than<br />
Obrigheim in the Palatinate, hence from Alamannia, but see now RGA s.v. Obrigheim.<br />
Hauck, “Breddenkmäler” 1957, 354, sees here an illustration of the Hildesaga. Hauck,<br />
“Adelskultur” 1957, 12, gives Woden a twin-snake headgear (cf. p. 120f, this volume), but<br />
Böhner, “Eschwege” 1991, 717, says one cannot see it. The dancer’s headgear looks rather<br />
like the lone-snake cap on the Vindonissa foil (Hauck, “Adelskultur,” fig. 3). Further right<br />
was a warrior with a shield, according to Hauck, “Adelskultur” 1957, 11ff., but doubted by<br />
Böhner, “Eschwege” 1991, 717.<br />
82 Böhner, “Eschwege” 1991, 717, mentions “zwei noch schwach erkennbare Ansätze” above<br />
the god’s head that might be restored to look like the twin dragons of the Torslunda die<br />
dancer, but this is unlikely, for to show the twin dragons, the dancer’s head needs to be<br />
depicted frontally.<br />
83 Browband decorations: Böhner, “Spangenhelme” 1994. A drinking bowl or beaker (Steuer,<br />
“Ringschwert” 1987, 205) seems less likely, given the content of the scene.<br />
84 Conversion: Wallace-Hadrill, Church 1983, 17–36.<br />
85 Bruce-Mitford, Sutton Hoo 1978; Hauck, “Sutton Hoo” 1982, 351f. Howl: Fight at<br />
Finnsburg 6: “Gylleð græghama.”<br />
86 Indians, Romans, Germani: Kershaw, God 2000; Livy 10.27.9: “Martius lupus—gentis nos<br />
Martiae et conditoris nostri admonuit”; Woden’s wolves: Grímnismál 19; de Vries,<br />
Religionsgeschichte II, 1957, 61. Geri: Grímnismál 19. Woden-sprung kings: Chaney, Cult<br />
1970, 121ff., who fails, however, to see the two throne wolves on the Bayeux tapestry as<br />
Woden’s beasts with the king. Woden’s wolves in England: Owen, Rites 1981, 10f. and 15;
Notes 196<br />
comparable eagle carvings: Beck, Bildderkmäler 1964, 30f. God’s might: Höfler,<br />
“Abstammungstraditionen” 1973, 28f.<br />
87 Höfler, Geheimbünde 1934; de Vries, Religionsgeschichte I, 1956, 454 and II 1957, 498;<br />
Davidson, Scandinavia 1967, 98f.; Beck, “Stanzen” 1968; Bruce-Mitford, Aspects 1974,<br />
214ff.; Hauck, “Kulte” 1980, 519 (one-eyedness); Hauck, “Germania-Texte” 1982, 192f.<br />
(with a drawing that marks the neck-ring of the right-hand dragon); Hauck, “Dioskuren”<br />
1984, 485; Böhner, “Eschwege” 1991, 718 reviews Hauck’s results, mainly approving. The<br />
hat-wearer not Woden: Bruce-Mitford, Aspects 1974, 208; Anwidsson, Valsgärde, 1977,<br />
125; Steuer, “Ringschwert” 1987, 222; but see pp. 117ff, this volume. Not adduced here are<br />
the hound-headed warriors on the shorter Gallehus horn, for they may be “Mischwesen”<br />
rather than wolf-warriors, contra Höfler, Schriften 1992, 79; Quast, “Kriegerdarstellungen”<br />
2002, 271.<br />
88 See the twin-dragon shield badge on p. 49 and in Figure 3.2.<br />
89 Flaps: see p. 120. Viksø: Cunliffe, Prehistory 1994, 330. See also Caesar’s Vercingetorix<br />
denarius. Headgear: see pp. 118ff.<br />
90 Threaten: Hauck, “Herrschaftszeichen” 1954, 47; Hauck, “Adelskultur” 1954, 19f.; Alföldi,<br />
“Cornuti” 1959, 177. Spear avoids foot: Beck, “Stanzen” 1968, 239; 247ff. Vulfolaic: see p.<br />
29<br />
91 See pp. 98 and 117.<br />
92 Hauberk: contra, Höfler, “Berserker” 1976, 300 “mit einem bis zu den Knieen reichenden<br />
Fellkittel—bekleidet.” Hauberks: Bruce-Mitford, Sutton Hoo, 1978, 232–239. Wolf-names:<br />
Ninck, Wodan 1935, 51. Reichert, Lexikon II, 1990, 656–659. In the north: Müller,<br />
“Wolfhetan” 1967, 201ff. Müller’s study lays to rest von See’s claim (“Berserker” 1961) that<br />
Thorbjörn Hornklofi in the ninth century “invented” the úlfheðnar; see also Beck, “Stanzen”<br />
1968, 247; Müller, Personennamen 1970, 222; Höfler, “Berserker” 1976, 300. On the shared<br />
culture of Alamannia and Sweden, see p. 162f.<br />
93 Saxo 115; Volsung saga 8. Eliade, Shamanism 1964, 460f. (also p. 14, this volume).<br />
94 Gods present: Snorri Sturluson, Ynglingasaga 6; Dumézil, Destiny 1970, 141; Eliade, Myth<br />
1963, passim. Any warrior wolf: Müller, Personennamen 1970, 4ff. and 178ff.; in “The<br />
Battle of Maldon,” 96, the Danes are called “waelwolfas.” Young Helgi is a friend of<br />
“wolves,” Helgakviða Hundingsbana 1.6: “sá er varga vinr.” Hiadnings: Skáldskaparmál 61;<br />
Hátatal 49; Höfler, Geheimbünde 1934, 162–172; Landolt, “Hedeninge” 2000, 109–110. For<br />
the related Frankish Chedinus, see p. 30. For Old Norse Heðinn, see Blaney, “Berserkr”<br />
1972, 31ff.<br />
95 IK 65 (Gudbrandsdalen).<br />
96 Beck, “Stanzen” 1968, 247f.<br />
97 Irish: McCone, “Hund” 1987, 104. Pictish: stone of Gellyburn, Murthly, Perthshire, now in<br />
the Scottish Museum, Edinburgh (a photograph in Birkhan, Kultur 1999, 337). Lithuanians,<br />
Slavs: Kershaw, God 2000, 165ff.<br />
98 Ringquist, “Människofigurer” 1969, from grave 46. Ringquist’s drawing gives the hood a<br />
back-crest which it does not have, as I observed when studying the original.<br />
99 Úlfheðinn: Müller, Personennamen 1970, 212. Tail: strangely, folk tales from Schleswig-<br />
Holstein hold that a short, stumpy tail betrays a werewolf, setting him off from a real wolf<br />
(Rheinheimer, “Wolf” 1994, 411).<br />
100 Perhaps a spear: Ringquist, “Människofigurer” 1969- <strong>Heathen</strong> crosses (Thor hammers):<br />
Paulsen, Axt 1939, 240; 266; Hauck, “Auswertung” 1998, 336; Hauck, “Brakteat” 2000, 32;<br />
48; 57; 63; Behr, “Kreuz” 2000. Crosses on sword blades: Beck, Ebersignum 1965, 50.<br />
101 Portray heroes: Hauck, “Wiedergabe” 1981, 168ff.; Böhner, “Spangenhelme” 1994, 544.<br />
Sigurd: Ellis, “Sigurd” 1942; Blindheim, Billedkunst 1972; Ploss, Siegfried 1966; Ziegler,<br />
“Oðin” 1985, 10 and 100ff.; Düwel, “Sigurddarstellungen” 1986. Some tenth-century<br />
crosses from the Isle of Man show Sigurd stabbing horizontally, but perhaps only for lack of<br />
space (Ellis, “Sigurd” 1942; Düwel “Sigurddarstellungen” 1986, 240ff.). A fourteenth-
Notes 197<br />
century weaving from Lundevall/Telemark has both Sigurd and the dragon stand upright as<br />
they fight—but this is because the dragon snaps after Sigurd’s horse (Blindheim, Billedkunst<br />
1972, no. 19; Ploss, Siegfried 1966, 102 with fig. 11; Düwel, “Sigurddarstellungen” 1986,<br />
249). Beowulf. 874–887.<br />
102 Sigmund: Neckel, “Drachenkampf’ 1920, 122ff. (contra: Ploss, Siegfried 1966, 12). A hero<br />
fighting a standing dragon seems to be shown on the Burwell box, too, but without a wolfmask:<br />
Vierck, “Nordendorf” 1967, 121f. and fig. 5.1a. Winchester: Biddle, Excavations<br />
1966, 329ff. Cf. Höfler, Geheimbünde 1934, 210ff.<br />
103 The Icelandic Fornmanna sögur (3, 182f.) of the fourteenth<br />
century still know a wolf-warrior as king of the otherworld; Höfler,<br />
Geheimbünde 1934, 172ff. Being too heathen for Christian times, the<br />
lay of Sigmund gave way, around AD 1000, to the lay of Sigurd:<br />
Neckel, “Drachenkampf” 1920, 226. Sinfiötli=Fitela: Beowulf 879;<br />
889; Fitela=“wolf”: Klaeber, Beowulf 1950, 434f.; Müller,<br />
Personennamen 1970, 211. Early lay: Neckel, “Drachenkampf”<br />
1920; Höfler, Geheimbünde 1934, 210ff.; Haubrichs, “Karolinger”<br />
2000, 292. Sigmund and Sinfiötli: Grimm, “Bedeutung” 1865, 206.<br />
104 Ringquist, “Människofigurer” 1969<br />
105 Woden’s men: Höfler, Runenstein 1952, 331f. Hauck, “Adelskultur” 1957; Hauck,<br />
“Bilddenkmäler” 1976, 592; Ziegler, “Oðin” 1985. Enright, “Warband” 1998, 329; 335.<br />
Among Alamanni, wolves and eagles were Woden’s animals—witness the Deisslingen and<br />
Löhningen discs. Woden worshipers, typically, were leaders of warbands, de Vries,<br />
Religionsgeschichte II 1957, 97ff. Warbands were religious groups: Enright, “Warband”. For<br />
the religious link of animal names and animal symbolism among ancient Germani see<br />
Müller, “Tiersymbolik” 1968; third-century <strong>Germanic</strong> dog- and wolf-images as the animals<br />
of a war god: Werner, Aufkommen 1966, 13ff.; cautious: Müller, Personennamen 1970,<br />
195ff. (not “Attributstiere”).<br />
106 Beck (“Stanzen” 1968, 247f.) assumes a bond of Woden with the úlfheðnar, based on the<br />
line by Eyvind Skaldaspillir quoted on p. 33, which, however needs not imply a bond with<br />
Woden. “Mythologize”: von See, “Berserker” 1961, 135, commenting on Snorri’s Yngliga<br />
saga 6: “Woden’s…men went to battle without hauberks and acted like mad dogs or<br />
wolves”; Höfler, “Berserker” 1976, rightly rejects this. Moreover, Woden himself sometimes<br />
wore fur, hence his Old Norse name Loðinn: Müller, Personennamen 1970, 214; see Höfler,<br />
Runenstein 1952, 329ff.; also Woden’s wolf-tail on the Års bracteate amulet see Figure 11.2.<br />
His Anglo-Saxon name Grim means “the one with the mask,” which makes him a masked<br />
warrior, perhaps a wolf-, bear-, or buck-warrior: Grimm, “Bedeutung” 1865, 205; Müller,<br />
Personennamen 1970; Stenton, England 1971, 100; Owen, Rites 1981, 10; Kershaw, God<br />
2000.<br />
107 Wolfdieterich: Grimm, “Bedeutung” 1865, 209- Compare the Volsung saga, Ziegler, Oðin<br />
1985. Sin: Dumézil, Destiny 1970, 65–107. Magic: Eliade, Myth 1963, 13ff.<br />
108 Blaney, “Berserkr” 1972, 85f.; cf. Snorri Sturluson, Heimskringla, Óláfs saga Helga 228<br />
(Hollander, Heimskringla 1964, 514f.).<br />
109 See p. 43f.<br />
110 Paul the Deacon, Historia Langobardorum 1.11; Volsung saga 8; Helgaqviða<br />
Hundingsbana in fyrri 36.9f.; Egils saga 66; cf. Saxo 24; 51. Compare Ammianus’ tale of a<br />
windpipe-biting, blood-sucking naked Arab (31.16.6; Woods, “Ammianus” 2002) that may<br />
be a Gothic wolf-warrior tale.
Notes 198<br />
111 Sturluson: Óláfs saga Helga 228. Hafrsfjord: Sturluson, Harald’s saga Hárfagra 18; see p.<br />
43f. Fire and steel: compare p. 79, this volume; furs, of course, offer also some natural<br />
protection against blades: Pausanias 4.11.3.<br />
112 Saxo 115.7f.: “Pugiles…ululantium more luporum horrisonas dedere voces”; compare Saxo<br />
162. However, they need not be wolf-warriors (as distinguished from bear-warriors by<br />
Hornklofi), for by Saxo’s time they all could be called berserks, cf. Davidson, Saxo 1979, II,<br />
105; moreover, the battle cry generally seems to have been a wolfish howl: p. 111, this<br />
volume.<br />
113 Wolf-warriors: Gerstein, “Warg” 1974, 155; McCone, “Hund” 1987, 145; Kershaw, God<br />
2000. Seen as berserks: Höfler, Schriften 1992, 60ff.; von See, “Berserker” 1961, 129–135,<br />
Grönbech, Kultur 1997, I, 274. It may be best not to call wolf-warriors “werewolves,” for<br />
were-wolfishness is not a warrior style but rather a personal trait, or even an imagined<br />
sickness (lycanthropy); cf. Pliny, Natural History 8.80; Ninck, Wodan 1935, 50; 60; 62ff.; de<br />
Vries, Religionsgeschichte I, 1956, 238; Burkert, Homo 1972, 103. Vatnsdæla saga 9: “<br />
berserkir, er úlfheðnar váru kallaðir; hofðu vargstakka fyrir brynjur.” Our translation, in<br />
which we are heartened by a kind letter from H. Beck, follows Müller, “Wolfhetan” 1967,<br />
200, and others. By contrast, von See, “Berserker” 1961, 135, translates “wolf-pelts over<br />
their hauberks,” yet if berserks by this time were understood to be “bare-shirts” (Ynglinga<br />
saga 6), how could they wear hauberks? Scorned armor: Höfler, Runenstein 1952, 331.<br />
McCone, “Hund” 1987, 106, wrongly equates wolf-warriors of antiquity and the early<br />
Middle Ages with naked warriors: they were armored, as Figures 1.1, 1.4, 1.6 and 1.7 show.<br />
114 Wolfdieterich: Grimm, “Bedeutung” 1865, 206ff. Public hunts: Rheinheimer, “Wolf” 1994.<br />
On the loose: New York Times, April 2, 2000 (evening edition).<br />
115 Medieval wolf-sympathy: Grimm, “Bedeutung” 1865, 205f.; 210ff.; Förstemann,<br />
Namenbuch 1900, 1653: “Wolfhelm,” Old English “Vulfhelm.” Family symbols: Werner,<br />
“Heilsbilder” 1963, 380. Hundsgugel: The helmet was once fitted with a mail neckguard,<br />
compare Contamine, War 1984, fig. 19. Höfler, Schriften 1992, 65 suggests there was a<br />
broad tradition of such masks in other materials, now lost. The other age-old warrior image<br />
of wolves, that of outlaws haunting the woods, lived on even longer into early modern times.<br />
The peasants of Lorraine, whom the Thirty Years War (1618–1648) turned into<br />
highwaymen, were “Schnapans, loups de bois,” just as those who fought the French invaders<br />
of the Franche Compté from 1674 to 1678, were “loups de bois”: Boulainvilliers, État 1752,<br />
396; Gresset, Provinces 1977, 30 (references I owe to the kindness of Kieko Matteson).<br />
2<br />
BEARS<br />
1 Bear sympathy: Müller, Personennamen 1970, 201f. Ziegler,“Oðin” 1985, 77. Sioux: Catlin,<br />
Letters I, 1973, 244; a Tlingit bear helmet in the Leningrad Museum of Anthropology:<br />
Siebert and Forman, Art 1967, plate 51. China: Eliade, Shamanism 1964, 460f. A bronze<br />
figurine of a bear-man from Ust-Garevaya, Perm region, is in the Hermitage Museum, St<br />
Petersburg. Bears and warriors in Asia: Altheim, Niedergang I, 1952, 72f. The old-fashioned<br />
Greeks of Arcadia wore perhaps both wolfskins and bearskins in battle, but we do not know<br />
how far they identified themselves with the animals (Pausanias 4.11.3; Alföldi, Struktur<br />
1974, 44f.; Scheibelreiter, Tiernamen 1976, 50; McCone, “Hund” 1987, 121ff.). Celts:<br />
Birkhan, “Germanen” 1970, 439f. The bear-pelts of Silius Italicus 4.558 and 8.523 (and<br />
perhaps those of Pausanias 4.11.3, too) covered only the chest, not the head, hence the<br />
warriors did perhaps not identify with bears. Beck, “Personennamen” 1986, 304: “Mit einer
Notes 199<br />
gewissen Wahrscheinlichkeit lässt sich ein indogermanisches Erbe nur für das<br />
Namenselement Wolf sichern.”<br />
2 Cichorius, Reliefs 1896, 175: “Vier der Soldaten tragen über Kopf und Schultern ein Thierfell,<br />
dessen Unterkiefer als Wangenschild zu dienen scheint und dessen Tatzen über der Brust<br />
gekreuzt sind; an der rechten Seite tragen sie die leere, am balteus von der linken Schulter<br />
herabhängende Schwertscheide, während das Schwert selbst in der gesenkten Rechten zu<br />
ergänzen ist.”<br />
3 Overlong bear claws are seen also on the gravestone of Pintaius: Bauchhenss, Grabdenkmäler<br />
1978, no. 5; see the marked claws on the gravestones of Faustus, Secundus, and Genialis:<br />
Boppert, Grabdenkmäler 1992, nos. 7; 8; 9.<br />
4 Roman helmets combined with bear-hoods for use by Roman soldiers: Vegetius 2.16;<br />
gravestone of Pintaius: Bauchhenss, Grabdenkmäler 1978, no. 5. Roman helmets combined<br />
with animal-hoods for use by <strong>Germanic</strong> warriors: see p. 51f. <strong>Germanic</strong> helmets covered with<br />
animal skins: Plutarch, Marius 25.7. Free Germani: Tacitus, Germania 6: “Vix uni alterive<br />
cassis aut galea”; Much, Germania 1967, 144f.<br />
5 Cichorius, Reliefs 1896, 175: “Über Kopf und Schultern ein Thierfell, dessen Unterkiefer als<br />
Wangenschild zu dienen scheint.” Spurs: Trajan’s Column, scene 61. Hellenistic lion-head<br />
helmets, too, were not meant to mask the wearer but to add to his height and fierce looks:<br />
Crous, “Waffenpfeiler” 1933, 81.<br />
6 Names: CIL XIII, 11735 from Heidelberg has a Respectus Beri, “son of the bear”; Speidel,<br />
Studiey II 1992, 102f.; Reichert, Lexikon II, 1990, 480. Nesselhauf, “Inschriften” 1937, nos.<br />
245ff.; 251. Birkhan, “Germanen” 1970, 379. Names and fury: see pp. 43 and 45.<br />
7 Kops plateau: Enkevort-Willems, “Helmets” 1994. Marten-helmet: see p. 52. Both reworked<br />
helmets fit Polybius’ description 6.22.3 of “a plain helmet” (i.e. without plume), covered<br />
with a wolfskin. Reworking: Jankuhn, in Much, Germania 1967, 145; Ilkjær, “Gegner”<br />
1997; Reichmann, “Spuren” 1999, 109 (below, Figure 4.1). Batavians reworking helmets:<br />
Enkevort and Willems, “Helmets” 1994, 134f. Naturalistic masks are not essential in animal<br />
sympathy (Beck, Ebersignum 1965, 54; Höfler, “Berserker” 1976, 301), hence some bear<br />
hair was enough, as was some wolf hair wound around the ring Gudrun sent to Gunnar<br />
(Atlaqviða 8). Names such as Bernhelm, Beornhelm: Höfler, Schriften 1992, 96f. Feeling<br />
like a bear: Eliade, Shamanism 1964, 459; Grönbech, Kultur 1997, I, 291.<br />
8 <strong>Germanic</strong> paired units: Höfler, Geheimbünde 1934, 158f. Greeks:<br />
Xenophon, Lacedaemonians 4.2ff.; Romans: Speidel, Riding 1994,<br />
32; 42f.; 60; 73; also p. 8, this volume; Byzantines: Priscus, frag. 49<br />
(Blockley)=Excerpta de leg. gent. 21: Wolf and bear are<br />
at times also paired in names as on the arch of Dativius Victor in<br />
Mainz, CIL XIII, 11810; Dessau, Inscriptiones 1892–1916, 7080<br />
additions; or in graffiti from Heddernheim: Scholz, “Bevölkerung”<br />
1997, 53f. Blaney, “Berserkr” 1972, constantly pairs Norse wolf- and<br />
bear-warriors. Romans, too, held bears and wolves together in awe<br />
(Ovid, Metamorphoses 14.255; 15.87; Apuleius, Metamorphoses<br />
8.17), and some Roman families named their sons Bear, Boar, and<br />
Wolf: CIL XI, 1777, Volaterrae, noticed by Syme, Papers 1988, 526,<br />
as Anthony Birley reminds me. Wolf- and bear-names in the same<br />
family in Icelandic sagas: Egils saga 1ff.; Höfler, “Berserker” 1976,
Notes 200<br />
302. See also the bear-wolves on the belt-buckle from Herbergen,<br />
Waurick, Gallien 1980, 189.<br />
9 Atlakviða 11 (around AD 900). The Norwegian lawbook (94) outlaws bears and<br />
wolves together: Gerstein, “Warg” 1974, 139; Paul, Wolf 1981, 56.<br />
10 In the famous Esquiline painting from the third or second century BC, M. Fannius, getting a<br />
military decoration, wears an animal skin over his shoulder, perhaps a token of overcoming<br />
an enemy: Alföldi, Reiteradel 1952, 50ff. Roman standard bearers wearing animal skins over<br />
the shoulder: CIL XIII 6911 and 11868=Boppert, Grabdenkmäler 1992, 8 and 9. Bearhoods,<br />
a Roman tradition: Alföldi, Struktur 1974, 81f and Hägg, “Haithabu” 1984, 186,<br />
without evidence. Adopted: Couissin, Armes 1926, 422ff. Torcs: Livy 6.42.5; 7.9.6–10.14;<br />
Valerius Maximus 3.26; Ammianus 24.4.5; Maxfield, Decorations 1981, 86f.<br />
11 Standard-bearers with decorations: Maxfield, Decorations 1981, 138. Late-Roman torc<br />
awards likewise first went to the bravest and then became a badge of standard-bearers:<br />
Speidel, “Decorations” I, 1996. Sander, “Germanisierung” 1939, 14f., awkwardly suggests<br />
that Romans wore bear-hoods against the cold. Badge: Vegetius 2.16: “ad terrorem” seems<br />
right, contra Couissin, Armes 1926, 424. First line: Speidel, “Who Fought” 2000. Höfler’s<br />
suggestion, Schriften 1992, 67ff. that first-century legions had enough Germani in their ranks<br />
to entrust <strong>Germanic</strong> pelt-wearers with their holy standards, is rather unlikely.<br />
12 Polybios 6.22.3. In a few cases, however, the reliefs picture wolf- rather than bearhoods on<br />
Roman standard-bearers, such as in scene 26 of Trajan’s Column; regular bear-hoods of<br />
Roman standard bearers on Trajan’s Column: Florescu, Trajanssäule 1969, 110. Alföldi,<br />
Struktur 1974, 82, has the cornicen on the Great Trajanic frieze wear a wolfskin, but his<br />
plate 5.2 more convincingly calls it a bearskin. The Aurelian panels portray only bearskins,<br />
no leopard skins: Scott-Ryberg, Panel Reliefs 1967, 41, contra Couissin, Armes 1926, 422.<br />
Alföldi, “Hasta” 1959, 4, sees wolf hoods on coins of the mid-first century BC, but they are<br />
the goat hoods of Juno Sospita.<br />
13 Rhine auxiliaries: Couissin, Armes 1926, 422ff.; there is one from Ragusa/Croatia, now in<br />
Vienna: Domaszewski, Fahnen 1885=Aufsätze 1972, 73 fig. 87. Pintaius: CIL XIII<br />
8098=Dessau, Inscriptiones 1892–1916, 2580=Domaszewski, Aufsätze 1972, fig.<br />
86=Bauchhenss, Grabdenkmäler 1978, no. 5. Genialis: CIL XIII 11868<br />
(Weissenau)=Boppert, Grabdenkmäler 1992, no. 9. On coins of Hadrian further standardbearers<br />
of auxiliary cohorts wear bear-hoods: RIC 927–930: Exercitus Raeticus; cf. RIC 935:<br />
Exercitus Syriacus.<br />
14 Rhine legions: Couissin, Armes 1926, 423. Early legionary standard-bearers with bear-hoods<br />
are Q. Luccius Faustus and Valerius Secundus, standard-bearers of legion XIV Gemina; their<br />
gravestones, found at Mainz, date from the years after AD 70: CIL XIII, 6898 and<br />
6911=Boppert, Grabdenkmäler 1992, nos. 7 and 8. Trajan: Great frieze on Constantine’s<br />
Arch in Rome; RIC 657. The latest bear-hood I know is that of the hornblower on the<br />
Portonaccio sarcophagus, see e.g. Kiechle, “Taktik” 1965, plate 15.2, just beneath the dragon<br />
standard. Praetorian standard-bearers: Trajan’s Column, scene 113; perhaps after Vergil,<br />
Aeneid 7.688f.; for the transition to lion-hoods compare Alföldi, Struktur 1974, 81.<br />
15 Unruh, “Wargus” 1954, 20. The guard get-up is still preserved in Vienna’s Wagenburg-<br />
Monturdepot at the Hofburg (information I owe to my friend Hanns Ubl). Georgians in the<br />
Caucasus: Shota Rustaveli, The Knight in the Panther’s Skin, verse 84, says of his knight<br />
“Over this rich apparel was flung the skin of a panther, and the cap on his head was made<br />
from the self-same panther skin” (translation by Venera Urushadze, Tbilisi 1986).<br />
16 Odysseus similarly stripped the Wiesel cap off Dolon for a trophy: Iliad 10.458. North<br />
American Indians wore the dress and weapons of those they had slain in battle: Catlin,<br />
Letters 1973, I, 100. Likewise a medieval knight had the right to bear the arms taken from a
Notes 201<br />
foe in battle (Keen, Chivalry 1984, 130). Paris of Troy wore a leopard skin in battle: Iliad<br />
3.17.<br />
17 Unless a third-century irregular unit among the Batavi, known only as numerus Urs (…),<br />
represents bear-warriors named after Latin ursus (bear). Numerus Urs (…): CIL XIII,<br />
12505–12507; AE 1938, 34; Alföldy, Hilfstruppen 1968, 80; Hoffmann, Bewegungsheer I,<br />
1969, 184.<br />
18 Scorn: Claudian, In Rufinum, 2.76–85; Synesius, De Regno 20; Sidonius, Epistulae 5.7.4;<br />
John Lydus De magistratibus 1.12. Codex Theodosianus 14.10.4: “Maiores crines,<br />
indumenta pellium etiam in servis intra urbem sacratissimam praecipimus inhiberi”(AD<br />
416). Excubitores: Corippus, Iust. 1.202ff.; 3.165ff.; Haldon, Praetorians 1984, 136ff.;<br />
Whitby, “Omission” 1987, 483ff. Fur: John Lydus, De magistratibus 1.12. In the mountains,<br />
Arcadians and Bruttians, though, wore fur: Pausanias 4.11.3; Silius Italicus, Punica 8.523;<br />
568ff. Sympathy: Höfler, Schriften 1992, 70f.; McCone, “Hund” 1987, 122.<br />
19 Gregory of Tours, Historiae 9.12. Bear-names: Ninck, Wodan 1935, 48f. Names meant what<br />
they said: Scheibelreiter, Tiernamen 1976, 48. Scheibelreiter, Gesellschaft 1999, 185; 371ff.:<br />
“verwandelter Mensch”; “Sonder- oder Höchstform der Existenz”; “Trance.” Weakness:<br />
Egils saga 27; Höfler, “Berserker” 1976. “Ursio” (o.t. “yrre”): Müller, Personennomen<br />
1970, 18.<br />
20 Finnesburg 38. Names no longer understood: Müller, Personennamen 1970, 246.<br />
21 Snorri Sturluson, Heimskringla, Haralds saga Hárfagra 18. Berserks in Norse literature:<br />
Weiser, Jünglmgsweihen 1927, 43ff.; Höfler, Geheimbünde 1934, 198f.; Ninck, Wodan 1935<br />
34ff.; de Vries, Religionsgeschichte I 1956, 493; Kuhn, “Grenzen” 1956, 68ff.; von See,<br />
“Berserker” 1961. Müller, Personennamen 1970, 222, Blaney, “Berserkr” 1972, and Höfler,<br />
“Berserker” 1976, 301, give the best accounts. Simek, Dictionary 1993, 35; Daxelmüller,<br />
“Geheimbünde” 1998, 563.<br />
22 Snorri Sturluson, Heimskringla, Ynglinga saga 6. Güntert, Geschichten 1912, 21f.; Müller,<br />
Personennamen 1970, 222f; Blaney, “Berserkr” 1972, 21ff.; 27ff. (fullest account of the<br />
discussion); Höfler, “Berserker” 1976, 299; Simek, Dictionary 1993, 35; contra von See,<br />
“Berserker” 1961, well refuted by Blaney, “Berserkr” 1972, 27ff. For bear warriors in Norse<br />
literature see Hrólfs saga Kraka; Weiser, Jünglingsweihen 1927, 48; Ninck, Wodan 1935,<br />
48ff.; Höfler, “Berserker” 1976, 299; Ranke, “Bär” 1976, 47. Wolfpelts, too, could be called<br />
serkr, see Daxelmüller, “Geheimbünde” 1998, 563; von See, “Berserker” 1961, 132.<br />
23 See also Haraldskvaeði 20f., dated by von See, “Berserker” 1961, 131f. to the twelfth<br />
century. Ninck, Wodan 1935, 34ff.; Höfler, Runenstein 1952, 93f. “Serkr” in this context<br />
may mean “hauberk,” Thorbjorn Hornklofi, Haraldskvaeði 4: serkjom hring-ofnom “ringwoven<br />
sarks.” Cf. von See, “Berserker” 1961, 132; Höfler Runenstein 1952, 299<br />
24 Hornklofi’s emjuðu is the howling of wolves: Altlamál 24.7: emioðo úlfar. Wolf-warriors<br />
howling: see p. 14. The shaking of weapons may refer to the wolf-warriors’ war dance, see<br />
p. 29- Grenja of berserks: e.g. Egils saga 64, cf. Güntert, Geschichten 1912, 10. Snorting of<br />
bears on the attack: Grzimek, Encyclopedia 1990, 400. Broken sword blade: Lay of<br />
Hildibrand’s death (Ásmundar saga kappabana 8, prologue). Berserks snarling like dogs:<br />
Vatnsdoela saga: grenjuðu sem hundar. Grenja in Old Norse prose: information kindly<br />
given by James E. Knirk of the Dictionary of Old Norse Prose in Copenhagen. Real bears:<br />
Vilmundar saga vidutan 170; Grettis saga 75.6. Remarkably, the sound of waves breaking is<br />
also that of the fourth-century barritus battle cry: Ammianus 16.12.43 (see p. 111). In the<br />
light of Knirk’s information, Güntert, Geschichten 1912, 10, and Müller, Personennamen<br />
1970, 217, seem to be mistaken in translating grenia as heulen. The shield-biting that goes<br />
with it may also be a bear-attack sound (see p. 77), and Egils saga 54 (where Davidson, Saxo<br />
1979, II, 77 and 105, takes grenja wrongly for the howling of wolves).<br />
25 Claim: von See, “Berserker” 1961, now amply refuted by Blaney, “Berserkr” 1972, 23ff. A<br />
technical term: Güntert, Geschichten 1912, 19ff.; Höfler, “Berserker” 1976, 299, was right—<br />
as so often; cf. Strom, “Björnfällar” 1980. Parallelism: Müller, “Wolfhetan” 1967, 201;
Notes 202<br />
Personennamen 1970, 222f. Names: Förstemann, Namenbuch 1900, 262–270 (with<br />
“Perrhelm”); Ninck, Wodan 1935, 50ff.; Höfler, Runenstein 1952, 306; 329f.; Müller,<br />
Personennamen 1970, 220; Ranke, “Bär” 1976; Beck, “Eber” 1986, 335; Grönbech, Kultur<br />
1997, I, 272. See also the bear-youth and bear-fight of seventh-century heroes on the<br />
Torslunda plaques and Vendel foils: Hauck, “Bilddenkmäler” 1976, 591; “bear-heads”<br />
(Björnhofda): Höfler, “Berserker” 1976, 300; Böhner, “Eschwege” 1991, 967. Bears as<br />
shield names: Beck, Ebersignum 1965, 36. Bjarnheðinn (“bear-pelt”) is a rare Norse<br />
personal name: Höfler, “Berserker” 1976, 299; Müller, “Wolfhetan” 1967, 202; Müller,<br />
Personennamen 1970, 212. Bearhelm and Wolfhelm are both common names (Höfler,<br />
Schriften 1992, 96ff.), although “helm” may here mean “leader, protector” (Müller,<br />
Personennamen 1970, 220f.).<br />
26 Nowadays it is the fashion to dismiss such links (e.g. RGA 17, 2001, 205–237), but here they<br />
stand well documented. More positive: de Vries, Religionsgeschichte I, 1956, 9ff.; Gordon,<br />
Battle 1966, 26; Ellmers, “Schiffsdarstellungen” 1986. The study of the Celts has not<br />
suffered from such time-serving, cf. Stancliffe, “Kings” 1980, 80.<br />
27 Perlaicus: Förstemann, Namenbuch 1900, 263. Imitating: Catlin, Letters 1973, I, 244.<br />
Dancing bears in the early Middle Ages: Ranke, “Bär” 1976. China: Eliade, Shamanism<br />
1964, 460f.; Mallory and Adams, Encyclopedia 1997, 56, report Hittite bearskin dancers.<br />
Bear-warrior style a Scandinavian invention: Simek, Dictionary 1993, 35. Nordic berserks<br />
certainly derive not from late-Roman guards as has been said, nor from (bare-chested)<br />
gladiators, contra Kuhn, “Grenzen” 1956, 68–73; Kuhn, “Kämpen” 1968; see Wenskus,<br />
Stammesbildung 1961, 365; Ziegler, Oðin 1985, 77f.<br />
28 Oseberg drawing also in Marstrander, Skipene 1986, 132. Hougen, “Billedvev” 1940, fig. 9;<br />
Simpson, Life 1987, 151ff. The “ears” of the hoods point to wolf- or bear-warriors, while<br />
their puzzling shape could be due to constraints of textile art, or to the felt of which they may<br />
have been made like others found at Haithabu in Schleswig Haithabu: Hägg, Haithabu 1984.<br />
29 Snorri Sturluson, Ynglinga saga 6, (see p. 74, this volume). Howled: Davidson, Road 1976,<br />
113f., referring to Leo the Deacon. Gait: Müller, “Wolfhetan” 1967, 207ff. with reference to<br />
Wolfdregil etc. Becoming a bear: Güntert, Geschichten 1912, 20ff.; Höfler, Geheimbünde<br />
1934, 171; Altheim, Niedergang I, 1952, 116. Müller, Personennamen 1970, 178ff.; 194.<br />
Grönbech, Kultur 1997, I, 291: “Man kann die Sprünge eines Tieres nicht nachahmen, ohne<br />
dass eine innere Anpassung stattfindet.” Understandably, the Roman Vegetius (2.16) sees<br />
only the frightening aspect of bear-hoods: “Omnes antesignani vel signiferi, quamvis<br />
pedites, loricas minores accipiebant et galeas ad terrorem hostium ursinis pellibus tectas”;<br />
Höfler, Schriften 1992, 54f.; 67f. Animal language as spirit language of power: Eliade,<br />
Shamanism 1964, 93ff. Sagas: Egils saga 64, cf. Güntert, Geschichten 1912, 10. Shapeshifting:<br />
Blaney, “Berserkr” 1972, 39ff.<br />
30 Bear attack sounds: Grzimek, Encyclopedia 1990, 400. Berserks biting shields in sagas:<br />
Snorri Sturlusson, Ynglinga saga 6; Vatnsdcela saga 16; Grettis saga 151–153; Blaney,<br />
“Berserkr” 1972, 4. The Lewis chess rooks are in the form of warriors biting shields that<br />
they hold in their hands, thus refuting the suggestion of Przyluski, “Loupsgarons” 1940,<br />
133ff, that berserks held shields with their teeth because their hands had become paws. The<br />
best shield-biting rook of the Lewis chess set is in the Scottish Museum, Edinburgh, see<br />
Figure 5.4. Snorting and teeth-snapping in battle madness is known of the Sioux too: Catlin,<br />
Letters 1973, I, 246.<br />
31 Trance: Eliade, Shamanism 1964, 385; 459f.; 504; Beck, Ebersignum 1965, 146f.; Beck,<br />
“Ekstase” 1989; Höfler, Siegfried 1961, 28ff.; Höfler, Schriften 1992, 63. Some shamans,<br />
too, used bear heads for their cap of power, Eliade, Shamanism 1964, 154f. Carib:<br />
Whitehead, “Warfare” 1990, 152.<br />
32 Blaney, “Berserkr” 1972, 70f., suggests that the bears on Vendel helmet foils are also<br />
warriors in bear disguise. If so, they differ from wolf-warriors in that they, like Bothvar<br />
Bjarki, are all-bear, not just hooded men.
Notes 203<br />
33 Hrólfs saga Kraka 33; Güntert, Geschichten 1912, 20. Wound-proof: cf. Eliade, Shamanism<br />
1964, 100. Grades of shape-shifting: Blaney, “Berserkr” 1972, 39ff.; Alföldi, Struktur 1974,<br />
36f. Strength: Snorri Sturluson, Ynglinga saga 6 (on berserks): “strong as bears or bulls.”<br />
Irish legend: Güntert, Geschichten 1912, 30, note 41. Sioux “Mah-to-ra-rish-nee-eech-eerah”:<br />
Catlin, Letters 1973, I, 223.<br />
34 Woden’s bear names: de Vries, Religionsgeschichte II, 1956, 363; Beck, Bilddenkmäler<br />
1964, 13. Woden as a bear: Höfler, Runenstein 1952, 237. Religious, symbolic, not mindless:<br />
Beck, Ebersignum 1965, 80; 98f.; Alföldi, Struktur 1974, 34. Modern views of bear-warriors<br />
are ambivalent: J.J.R. Tolkien’s Beorn in The Hobbit, though quick to anger, is good, while<br />
Michael Crichton’s bear-warriors in The Thirteenth Warrior are evil.<br />
35 Symbols: Höfler, Schriften 1992, 147–149ff.; Beck, “Eber” 1986, 335. Bear-warrior suit:<br />
Museo Nazionale del Bargello, Firenze; Höfler, Schriften 1992, 64f.<br />
3<br />
BUCKS<br />
1 Columella 7.3.4: “est illud incommodum in cornuto, quod cum sentiat se velut quodam<br />
naturali telo capitis armatum, frequenter in pugnam procurrit.” Indians: Alföldi, “Cornuti”<br />
1959, 177f.; Kershaw, God2000, 202. Iranians: Ammianus 19.1.3 on the Shah wearing a<br />
ram’s head, for which see the Sassanian silver bowl now in Baltimore: Alföldi, Struktur<br />
1974, plate 14; Dumézil, Destiny 1970, 139. Sardinian Shardana: Drews, End 1993, 135ff.,<br />
145 and 154; Cunliffe, Prehistory 1994, 286f. Mycenaeans: the famous warrior-vase from<br />
Mycenae (Vermeule and Karagheorgis, Vase Painting 1982, 132ff.; Catalogue no. XI, 42).<br />
Archaic Greeks: Jeanmaire, Couroi 1939, 570–575; Alföldi, “Cornuti” 1959, 177f.<br />
Alexander’s horned fur helmet (Künzl, “Fellhelme” 1999, fig. 11) may be a buck headgear.<br />
Celts: Diodore 5.30. Birkhan, Kelten 1997, 1125–1149. The Celtic war god was often<br />
horned: Pauli, Kelten 1980 (with goatskin); Birkhan, Kelten 1997, 637. Celtic buck-warriors<br />
are known from helmets with goat horns and from the British Gabrantovices (Goat People):<br />
Birkhan, “Germanen” 1970, 462ff. Romans: coins and terracottas show Juno Sospita dressed<br />
like a goat-hooded warrior; Alföldi, Struktur 1974, 86ff. (with a huge bibliography); see also<br />
Widengren, Feudalismus 1969, 57; Dumézil, Religion 1970, 346ff.; Ulf, Luperkalienfest<br />
1982, 140f., doubts whether Luperci and wolves are related, but provisionally admits bucks<br />
and hounds as “initiation animals”; Kershaw, God 2000, 148; 192f. The Luperci have a very<br />
close parallel in the vrāta of Vedic India: de Vries, Religionsgeschichte II, 1957, 96.<br />
2 L’Orange, Bildschmuck 1939, 41–43; 60–64.<br />
3 L’Orange, Bildschmuck 1939, 63, takes all spearmen of the siege scene to be Cornuti, but the<br />
second and the fourth may not have horns and the third certainly has none. However, since<br />
they wear the same leather helmets as that worn by Cornutus below the wall, they are also<br />
<strong>Germanic</strong> warriors of the auxilia. Their leather helmets recall the leather helmet of a<br />
horseman in scene 36 of Trajan’s Column (Figure 0.2), also from the Rhine; compare earlier<br />
large Celtic horned leather helmets: Moreau, Welt 1961, plate 48f.; Birkhan, Kelten 1997,<br />
1125f.<br />
4 Notitia Dignitatum Oc. V, 2–23; Seeck, Notitia, 1876, 115. For the raising of these units under<br />
Maximian (284–305) see Julian, Orations 1.34; Hoffmann, Bewegungsheer I, 1969, 155f.;<br />
hence Altheim, Literatur 1948, 232 wrongly thinks they did not fight at the Milvian Bridge<br />
in 312. Fighting spirit: Columella 7.6.4: Quia cornuti fere perniciosi sunt propter<br />
petulantiam; cf. Petulantia in Ammianus 17.13.28; 26.7.4; 29.5.33; 31.6.3; Alföldi,<br />
“Schildzeichen” 1935. Bucks as warrior animals: Müller, Personennamen 1970, 190. Other<br />
<strong>Germanic</strong> warriors besides the Cornuti and Petulantes of Constantine’s Arch may also have<br />
worn helmets with upstanding horns, as on the Pruttning stone of AD 313: CIL III
Notes 204<br />
11771=Garbsch and Overbeck, Spätantike 1989, 71; contra: Alföldi, “Cornuti” 1959, 173;<br />
Hauck, “Polytheismus” 1994, 211. Helmets with horns carved or overlaid on the bowl, are,<br />
of course common, see the Portonaccio sarcophagus, Figure 17.4.<br />
5 <strong>Germanic</strong> warriors: Zosimus 2.15.1; Libanius, Oratio 30.6; Speidel, “Auxilia” 1996. Contra<br />
Barnes, Augustine 1995, 387 “largely Gallic”; but see F.Paschoud, Zosime, Histoire<br />
Nouvelle, vol. I, Paris 1971, 204. His “Germanoi” are men from the Rhine armies, named<br />
after the Roman provinces of the Germaniae. Gauls, pacified for 350 years, had lost their<br />
onetime warrior traditions (Tacitus, Agricola 11), although some still enrolled (Hoffmann,<br />
Bewegungsheer I, 1969, 154).<br />
6 Alföldi, “Schildzeichen” 1935; L’Orange, Bildsehmuck 1939, 43 and 123; Alföldi, “Cornuti”<br />
1959; Höfler, Schriften 1992, 117ff.; Hauck, “Polytheismus” 1994, 208ff.<br />
7 “Horns”: Alföldi, “Cornuti” 1959, 172; Hoffmann, Bewegungsheer I, 1969, 132f.; Hauck,<br />
“Bilddenkmäler” 1976, 590; Hauck, “Polytheismus” 1994, 218. For a buck with a beard<br />
coming down from the upper lip see e.g. Selzer, Steindenkmäler 1988, no. 255, though<br />
snakes also have such beards: Garbsch, Paraderüstungen 1978, plate 3, B3 (greave B11<br />
from Straubing).<br />
8 Princeton Art Museum; Alföldi, “Cornuti” 1959, fig. 2.<br />
9 As emperors paraded in the accoutrements of their guard, Cornuti promoted from the auxilium<br />
must have formed a section of the Schola Gentilium guard.<br />
10 Cornuti on the arch: L’Orange, Bildschmuck 1939, 41–43; 60–64. They are famous later as<br />
well: Ammianus 15.5.30; 16.11.9; 16.12.43; 16.12.63; 31.8.9.<br />
11 Meaning: Werner, Aufkommen 1966, 25. Heruli, etc: Panegyrici Latini 10.5.1: “Chaibones<br />
Erulique, viribus primi barbarorum, locis ultimi”; Nixon, Praise 1994, 62ff. Panegyrici<br />
Latini 12.25.2: “Tibi se ex ultime barbaria indigenae populi dedivere.” Speidel, “Auxilia”<br />
2004.<br />
12 Gallehus horn: see p. 122. Myth: Eliade, Myth 1954. Saxo, 13f.: “Nam tegmine saepe<br />
ferino/contigit audaces delituisse viros.” Davidson, in her 1979 commentary p. 28, note 13,<br />
quotes an Icelandic parallel. Perhaps a buck-warrior is meant in the Oseberg weaving:<br />
Marstrander, Skipene 1986, 128 (upper left). Buck-warriors fired the Dutch nationalistic<br />
historical imagination: Teitler, Opstand 1998, 9; 11; 22; 40; 66.<br />
13 She-goats: Ammianus 24.8.1: “deformes illuvie capellas et taetras.” Audun the Nanny Goat:<br />
Grettis saga 7.<br />
14 Names: Müller, Personennamen 1970, 75ff.; 169; 190; a new Buccus from Vindolanda:<br />
Birley, Garrison 2002, 100—though the name could also be Celtic as in CIL XIII, 5730<br />
(Langres). Bucciovaldus (“Buck-Warrior Leader”): Gregory of Tours, Historiae 9.23;<br />
Buccilin, etc.: Reichert, Lexikon II, 1990, 487; also Birkhan, “Germanen” 1970, 462f;<br />
Müller, Personennamen 1970, 190.<br />
15 Ethnographic traces of buck-warriors from the Middle Ages to the present: de Vries,<br />
Religionsgeschichte II, 1957, 64, referring to masked processions; Höfler, Geheimbünde<br />
1934, 40f.; Höfler, Runenstein 1952, 175; Alföldi, Struktur 1974, 95.<br />
4<br />
MARTENS<br />
1 Wolverine: Altheim, Niedergang I, 1952, 73f.; 178f.; 325f.; Alföldi, Struktur 1974, 37f.;<br />
plates 4.1 and 4.2. Heroic myth looked to the weasel: Volsung saga 8. Noaname: Müller,<br />
Personennamen 1970, 206.<br />
2 Werner, Aufkommen 1966, 26 and plate 12. The animal with its long, slim body and sharply<br />
curved back is certainly neither a wolf (Werner ibid.) nor a tiger (Werner, Zierscheiben<br />
1941, 62); Beck, Ebersignum 1965, 54: “rückwärts blickendes Tier.”
Notes 205<br />
3 Dolon: Iliad 10.335; 458; see p. 15, this volume. Greek , “marten” is Latin “galea.”<br />
Meuli, Maske 1933, 1848; Alföldi, Struktur 1974, 37f.<br />
4 For a photo, see Reichmann, “Spuren” 1999, 109. Dr Reichmann, in a letter, kindly described<br />
some features of the helmet for me, adding that a comparable Lynx skull and pelt was found<br />
in the fort. For reworked Roman helmets see p. 41.<br />
5 Plutarch, Marius 25: ; compare Vergil, Aeneid<br />
11, 680f. The Goths in AD 399 also wore yawning animal helmets: Reichert, “Feldzeichen”<br />
1994, 310f. (Gainas).<br />
6 Neumagen relief, now in Trier: Schumacher and Klumbach, Germanendarstellungen 1935,<br />
70. Doubt: Reichert, “Feldzeichen” 1994, 310f.<br />
7 Compare the Tell Halaf relief: Alföldi, Struktur 1974, plate 4.1. The unit ascribed to the badge<br />
is that of the Iovii, but on this side of the manuscript the labels are untrustworthy. <strong>Germanic</strong>:<br />
Speidel, “Auxilia” 2004.<br />
8 Grzimek, Encyclopedia 1990, 400: “A long-tailed weasel sitting up. In this posture, which is<br />
quite typical of mustelids, the animals stand up on their hind feet and stretch the head high in<br />
order to see and smell ‘what is going on’.” A fine drawing of martens is in Brehms<br />
Tierleben, Kleine Ausgabe, Leipzig 1903, 192.<br />
9 Förstemann, Namenbuch 1900, 1099; Müller, “Wolfhetan” 1967, 202; Kaufmann,<br />
Personennamen 1968, 250; Müller, Personennamen 1970, 73; 125; 128; 161; 191; 212.<br />
10 Indo-European boar-warriors: Alföldi, Early Rome 1965, 275; Alföldi, Struktur 1974, 169f.<br />
Boar-warriors of the <strong>Germanic</strong> Middle Ages: Beck, Ebersignum 1965; Birkhan, “Germanen”<br />
1970, 457ff.; Chaney, Cult 1970, 120ff.; Höfler, Schriften 1992, 87ff. There is also the name<br />
Ebur-roc, “Boar-Skin Wearer” (Kaufmann, Personennamen 1968, 200).<br />
11 Marstrander, Skipene 1986, 132. For the Oseberg wall-hanging see also this volume, p. 125.<br />
12 Eliade, Shamanism 1964, 460. His suggestion that “the possible influence of shamanic dress<br />
on military armor could profitably be studied in detail” was anticipated by Altheim,<br />
Niedergang I, 1952, 67.<br />
5<br />
NAKED BERSERKS<br />
1 Florus 1.37: “Invicta illa rabies et impetus quem pro virtute barbari habent.” Snorri: Ynglinga<br />
saga 6, quoted this volume, p. 74. The world-wide role of berserks: Speidel, “Berserks”<br />
2002. No-retreat societies: Turney-High, War 1991, 211ff. Sadly, berserks do not rate an<br />
entry in Mallory and Adams, Encyclopedia 1997, though they are recognized on page 632f.<br />
2 Slab: Mallory, Search 1989, fig. 27 and p. 204; Telegin and Mallory, Stelae 1994, 10ff.; 101.<br />
Heat: Saxo 190 and 77.10: “Nimio animi calore”; Eliade, Yoga 1958, 330ff.; Henry, “Furor”<br />
1981, 54; Birkhan, Kelten 1997, 805ff. Hirschlanden statue: see p. 60.<br />
3 Lambert, Fragments 1957–8, 38–51; Tukulti-Ninurta Epic 5.A.31ff.; Machinist, “Epic” 1978,<br />
121, with the Akkadian text; Foster, Muses 1996, 227. Widengren, Feudalismus 1969, 10f.<br />
For throwing off armor see the same epic 4.A.39 (Machinist 111; Foster 225).<br />
4 Beasts: Eliade, Shamanism 1964, 385; an Assyrian warrior demon with human body and<br />
fantastic animal head (Niniveh, about 645 BC): Reade, Sculpture 1999, 30. Storm:<br />
Hurovitz—Westenholz, “LK3” 1990, 5. Snorted: Foster translates Akkadian iziqa (from<br />
zâqu) as “blasted.”<br />
5 Breasted, Records [1906] 1962, vol. 3, paragraph 365.<br />
6 Machinist, “Epic” 1978, 111; commenting on p. 325 on this not being Mesopotamian.
Notes 206<br />
7 See Mayer, Politik 1995, 210. This would explain how they had come across the Euphrates:<br />
Hittite soldiers, attacking Assur. Enrolling the conquered: Malbran-Labat, Armée 1982, 89ff.<br />
Assyria adopting aspects of Hittite politics and warfare: Mayer, Politik 1995, 221ff.; 235f.<br />
8 Widengren, Feudalismus 1969, 14ff. Long-haired, naked Iranians: Widengren, Feudalismus<br />
1969, 17f.; Machinist, “Epic” 1978, 325. Schröder, “Ursprung” 1939, 325–367, 337f.,<br />
Schmökel, Geschichte 1957, 205, as well as Widengren, Feudalismus 1969, 10 and 33, think<br />
of Aryan Mitanni influence.<br />
9 Drews, End 1993, 175.<br />
10 Ibid., 193ff.<br />
11 Cultural (language-) change within a stable population is argued for India by Erdosy, Indo-<br />
Aryans 1995, 23f.—without convincing parallels, though.<br />
12 Sigurd, Volsung saga: “When men come to battle, a fearless heart matters more than a sharp<br />
sword.” See p. 197, this volume.<br />
13 Cavalry: Drews, End 1993, 164ff. Wikander, Vayu 1941, 92ff, suggested that ecstatic cult<br />
forms and warrior styles spread with cavalry warfare from the Aryans to the Thracians and<br />
thence to the Germani.<br />
14 Puhvel, Mythology 1987, 242. Indians: Maruts, see p. 72; Bollée, “Sodalities” 1981; compare<br />
the sixteenth-century berserk Malabar amoks of India, who, like berserks, “stopped neither at<br />
fire nor sword”: Nieuhof, Voyages 1988, 263; Spores, Amok 1988, 16f.<br />
15 Hittites: the guardian carved at the King’s Gate, Hattusas; they shared Indo-European warrior<br />
styles: a Hittite seal shows animal-warriors such as are known in the Veda—see Alföldy,<br />
Struktur 1974, plate 2/1; McCone, “Hund” 1987. Shardana: Abydos relief (Drews, End<br />
1993, 144f; 174f.). Mycenaeans: fresco at Pylos palace (Drews, End 1993, 140f.; 174).<br />
Northern Europe: statuette from Grevenswænge, Denmark (Demakopoulou, Gods 1999, 94).<br />
16 Statuettes: Boardman, Art 1985, 31, the Karditsa statuette, c. 700 BC. Greek art:<br />
Himmelmann, Nacktheit 1990, 29ff. Apollonios, Argonautica 3.1280ff.; Himmelmann,<br />
Nacktheit 1990, 29ff. Aetolians: Thucydides 3.97ff.; Macrobius, Saturnalia 5.18.13ff.<br />
Spartans: Jeanmaire, Couroi 1939, 550ff.; Alföldi, Struktur 1974, 122f.<br />
17 Hector: Iliad 6.100f.; 9.237ff. Teucer: Iliad 8.299 and 311; Plutarch, Agesilaos 34.<br />
18 Polybios 6.25.3–11. Alföldi, Reiteradel 1952, 49–53.<br />
19 Aeneid 11.641–644, cf. 11.666f.; Propertius 4.1.27–28. Dumézil, Mythes 1939, 86, reckons<br />
also Indian Gandharvas and Greek Centaurs among such warriors.<br />
20 Wounds glorious in Republican Rome: McCall, Cavalry 1992, 49.<br />
21 Rome and Italy: Vergil, Aeneid 7.641ff. cf. Silius Italicus, Punica 8.356ff. (bears: 8.523).<br />
Vergil had valuable sources of information, as is clear from the parallels of Polybius 6.22.3<br />
(Walbank, Commentary 1957, 703) and Propertius 4.10.20; Pliny, Natural History 10.16;<br />
Alföldi, Struktur 1974, 81. Flowing hair: Aeneid 11.640ff. Barefooted: Vergil, Aeneid<br />
7.689f. Naked: see e.g. a sixth-century bronze statuette from Umbria: Gersa and Weiss,<br />
Hallstattzeit 1999, plate 14. Open combat, single combat: Livy 1.24ff.; 42.47; Polybius 13.3;<br />
36.9; Demandt, Idealstaat 1993, 250ff. Use of clichés here: Schweizer, Vergil 1967, 16f.<br />
22 Trajan in the great frieze on Constantine’s Arch. Fronto, Principia historiae 14: “caput<br />
…neque vel adversus tela munitum praebere.”<br />
23 True battle gear: Diodore 5.29.2:<br />
. Power belt: see p. 000. Fischer, “Bewaffnung” 1976, 414, sees well that literary<br />
and monumental sources confirm each other, but needlessly finds a contradiction between<br />
glory-seeking and religious belief. Hirschlanden: Cunliffe, Celts 1997, 63; Magdalensberg:<br />
Birkhan, Kultur 1999, 275.<br />
24 Livy 5.37.4: “flagrantes ira cuius impotens est gens.”<br />
25 Polybius 2.29.7f.; cf. Dionysius of Halicarnassus 14.13; Livy 22.46.5; 38.21.9; 38.26.7;<br />
Diodore 5.30.3; see also the naked Celtic warrior of Pergamene art in Rome’s Capitoline<br />
Museum, the bronze statuette of a slinger in Berlin’s Pergamon Museum (Birkhan, Kultur
Notes 207<br />
1999, no. 723) and many other works of art; Fischer, “Bewaffnung” 1976, 414; Davidson,<br />
Myths 1988, 89; Birkhan, Kelten 1997, 867; 960f.<br />
26 Golden wristbands worn in battle by <strong>Germanic</strong> warriors had the same role: Procopius, Gothic<br />
Wars 3.24.24; Battle of Maldon 160f. Finger-rings: Saxo 58.22.<br />
27 Livy 38.21.9: “gloriosius se pugnare putant” (he also makes much of their rage). Cf. Vergil,<br />
Aeneid 11.646: “pulchramque petunt per vulnera mortem”; McCall, Cavalry 1992, 49.<br />
28 Roman eyes: Plutarch, Marius 23.2. Buri: Speidel, “Buri” 2004.<br />
29 Contra Cichorius, Reliefs II 1896, 175 and 178; a close parallel is the barefooted slinger in<br />
scene 66 of the Column.<br />
30 Aeneid 7.689. Cf. Kershaw, God 2000, 136.<br />
31 Only scenes 36 and 42 (Figure 5.3) show men this young—the same men as here. Compare<br />
youthful Celtic warriors with wild curls: Birkhan, Kelten 1997, 1063.<br />
32 Norden, Urgeschichte 1974, 113.<br />
33 Young: Vergil, Aeneid 1.497; Tacitus, Annals 15.69; Josephus, Jewish War 5.460; Herodian<br />
7.6.2; Panegyrici Latini 3.24.4: “iuvenes cum gladiis…imperatoris maiestatis solemnis<br />
ornatus”; Ammianus 31.13.16: “quidam de candidatis…iuvenis”; Synesius, De regno 18:<br />
; Speidel, Riding 1994, 78. Handsome: (Herodian 4.7.3); Procopius,<br />
Wars 3.2.4; Anecd. 6.2ff.; Zosimus 2.42. Speidel, Riding 1994, 61; 78; 87f.; 120. Tacitus,<br />
Germania 13.3: “electorum iuvenum globo circumdari, in pace decus, in bello praesidium.”<br />
Hairstyle: Speidel, Riding 1994, 144 (Antoninus); 81 (M. Aurelius); 64 (Septimius Severus);<br />
138 (Caracalla). Speidel, Studies II, 1992, 154 (Caracalla).<br />
34 For promotions Trajan preferred : AE<br />
1993, 1547; Speidel, Riding 1994, 78. (The man who set up the inscription very likely<br />
belonged to Trajan’s horse guard: Stoll, Heer 2000, 480f; Speidel, “Lebensbeschreibungen,”<br />
2004.) <strong>Germanic</strong> looks: Septimius Severus’ chariot leader on the arch at Leptis Magna<br />
(Wrede, Hermengalerie 1972, 71 and fig. 33.3); Herodian 4.7.3; Panegyrici Latini 8.16.4;<br />
Galerius’ arch in Thessaloniki (Laubscher, Gaterinsbozens 1975, 41f.). Gregory of Nyssa,<br />
De creatione hominis II, 292; Synesios, De regno 18. Same age also in India: Bollée,<br />
“Sodalities” 1981, 189.<br />
35 Gabelmann, “Grabmonumente” 1973, 144f.; fig. 12; 197.<br />
36 The fighter’s sword is carved in stone, which is how the Column often treats unusual<br />
weapons, such as the round-bladed lances in scene 5, the curved sword in scene 38 (see<br />
Figure 7.2), the dagger in scene 115, the clubs, and the Dacian sickle-swords. To be sure,<br />
some scenes, such as 24 and 72, also show unremarkable swords. Rossi, Column 1971, 124,<br />
shows a Dacian sword of the Column next to one actually found—both look very much<br />
alike.<br />
37 Rapiers: Raddatz, “Bewaffnung” 1976, 426, fig. 91d and e; 423, cf. 374. Scabbards with<br />
eyelets can, but need not, denote foreign swords, e.g. those on the base of the Column. Such<br />
a scabbard, from the mid-second century, found at Lynhøjgård/ Jutland, is in the Danish<br />
National Museum in Copenhagen (inv. no. 14677); I thank Dr Lars Jörgensen for his kind<br />
help at the museum in June 1999. Scabbards with eyelets, on the Column and in the Roman<br />
army: Weski, Waffen 1982, 18; Waurick, “Rüstung” 1989.<br />
38 Swords as the most heroic weapon: Procopius, Vandal War 2.3–9 and 14; cf. Ammianus<br />
21.5.10. Altheim, Niedergang I, 1952, 117; 121; Davidson, Sword 1962, 44f.; Adler, Studien<br />
1993, 237f. Saxo 41.<br />
39 Cichorius, Reliefs II 1896, 209, rightly states their dress to be the same as that of the bareshirts<br />
in scenes 36 and 40.<br />
40 Northerners seen as tall: see p. 88. Nordic berserks huge: Edda, Hábarðsljód 37–39;<br />
Eyrbyggja saga 25; see p. 74, this volume; Güntert, Geschichten 1912, 12; 23. Italic berserks<br />
huge: Herminius.
Notes 208<br />
41 Polybius 2.28.8 unconvincingly says the Gaesati at Telamon hoped to fight better in the nude<br />
partly because of brambles on the battlefield, cf. Fischer, “Bewaffnung” 1976, 414. Spartan<br />
youths trained without sandals: Xenophon, Lacedaemonians 2.3; Plutarch, Lycurgus 16.6;<br />
Alföldi, Struktur 1974, 122f. Aetolians: Thucydides 3.97ff.; Macrobius, Saturnalia<br />
5.18.13ff.; Aetolians and Spartans both followed old traditions: Alföldi, Struktur 1974, 127.<br />
For the parallel of the Praenestines see Vergil, Aeneid 7.685ff.; Alföldi, Struktur 1974, 184.<br />
Strengthen their will: Plato, Laws 633B (with scholia); cf. Jeanmaire, Couroi 1939, 550ff.<br />
Barefootedness likewise was to toughen Shaka’s Zulu warriors in 1816: Morris, Washing<br />
1965, 47 and 52.<br />
42 British barefoot: Dio 76.12; Herodian, 3.14.5ff. Pedites Singulares Britanniciani on Trajan’s<br />
Column: scenes 66; 70; 72; 108; 113.<br />
43 Polybius 2.28.7f.: Diodore 5.29.2:<br />
. Rome of the Republic: McCall, Cavalry 1992, 49.<br />
44 Livy on the Celts of Asia Minor: see note 25. Tacitus, Germania 7.2: “Hi cuique sanctissimi<br />
testes, hi maximi laudatores: ad matres, ad coniuges vulnera ferunt; nec illae numerare aut<br />
exigere plagas pavent.” See p. 278, note 42, this volume.<br />
45 Heruls: see p. 68; Höfler, Schriften 1992, 285–307.<br />
46 Contra Wolters, “Kampf” 2000, 212, to whom the nakedness of <strong>Germanic</strong> warriors refers to<br />
their chests only.<br />
47 Saxo 208; see pp. 60 and 78, this volume.<br />
48 Ruler of the world: Strohecker, Germanentum 1965, 19. Campbell, Emperor 1984, 46f.;<br />
146ff. Anywhere on earth: “remotis extractum lustris,” Silius Italicus 3.354f. Cf. Claudian,<br />
In Gildonem, Carmen 15.371ff.: “Quaecumque meo gens barbara nutu/stringitur adveniat:<br />
Germania cuncta feratur/navibus et socia comitentur classe Sygambri.”<br />
49 Trousered tribesmen: scenes 70; 72, cf. 108 and 115. Scenes 66 and 115 could mean barefoot<br />
warriors, but they are bearded and thus perhaps rather the same unit as in scene 108.<br />
50 CIL VI 960=Dessau, Inscriptiones 1892–1916, 294. Senate conservative about troops:<br />
Aurelius Victor, Caesares 3.15. Regular soldiers too resented the emperors’ tribal guards:<br />
Cassius Dio 78.6.4; Zosimus 4.35. Mauri: scene 64; Strobel, Dakerkriege 1984, 68ff.; 151f.<br />
51 HA Probus 14.7: “Sentiendum esse, non videndum, cum auxiliaribus barbaris Romanus<br />
iuvatur.” Ash, Ordering 1999, 67ff.<br />
52 The guards’ Roman looks: Speidel, Riding 1994, 130; native fighting styles: ibid. 26f.;<br />
swimming: ibid. 122f.; Speidel, “Lebensbeschreibungen” 2004. Barbed spears: Speidel,<br />
Riding 1994, 113 and plate 8; Speidel, Denkmäler 1994, no. 83; see also p. 142, this volume.<br />
Cf. Alföldi, Reiteradel 1952, 52.<br />
53 Equites Singulares Augusti and Trajan’s guard in Germany: Speidel, Riding 1994, 38ff. The<br />
Pedites Singulares from Germany, like those from Britain, may have stayed on in Dacia to<br />
become part of the Numerus German(ician)orum in Dacia, together with German<br />
Exploratores: AE 1972, 485–488=IDR III/3, 260–266a. Gostar, “Numerus” 1972; Strobel,<br />
Dakerkriege 1984, 148; Speidel, Studiey II, 1992, 361f. The British Pedites Singulares could<br />
also be called N(umerus) Brit(annicianorum): AE 1967, 412; CIL III, 1396.<br />
54 Pedites Singulares: Speidel, Guards 1978; Pedites Singulares Britanniciani: scenes 66; 70;<br />
72; 108; 113, as I will argue elsewhere; Strobel, Dakerkriege 1984, 101.; 148f.<br />
55 Josephus, Antiquities 19.1.15 (122); Speidel, Riding 1994, 23f.<br />
56 Caesar, Bellum Gallicum 7.13.1; Aurelius Victor, Caesares, 3.14f; Speidel, Riding 1994,<br />
12ff. By the early fourth century Rome even felt a need to stand up to the northerners<br />
culturally and forbade the wearing of long hair or furs in the city: Codex Theodosianus<br />
14.10.4: “Maiores crines, indumenta pellium etiam in servis intra urbem sacratissimam<br />
praecipimus inhiberi” (AD 416).<br />
57 Attack troops: Tacitus, Histories 2.22 (with 2.17); compare 2.32; 2.35; 3.21. Caracalla: Dio<br />
78.3.3; 78.6.1; Herodian 4.7.3; Speidel, Riding 1994, 64ff. Tallest: Herodian 5.4.8. Few
Notes 209<br />
gravestones of <strong>Germanic</strong> praetorians have come to light, but this is so mainly because<br />
Germani rarely set up gravestones; Speidel, Studies II, 1992, with note 17. Praetorians: Dio<br />
78.37.4; cf. Herodian 5.4.8.<br />
58 Panegyrici Latini 8.16.4f.: “imitatione barbariae…vix unius velaminis repertus indicio.”<br />
59 Constantine’s Arch in Rome, battle at the Milvian Bridge: Speidel, Riding 1994, 161, plate<br />
20; Galerius’ winning guard, as shown on his arch, likewise lacked cuirasses: Meyer,<br />
“Thessaloniki” 1980, 394. Constantine’s troops <strong>Germanic</strong>: Libanius, Oratio 30.6; Zosimus<br />
2.15.1; Speidel, “Auxilia” 1996, 163–170, 170.<br />
60 Vegetius 1.20: “itaque ab imperatore postulant primo catafractas, dein cassides deponere”;<br />
Sander, “Germanisierung” 1939, 30f.; Buchholz, “Bewaffnung” 1976, 476; Speidel, “Who<br />
Fought” 2000.<br />
61 Ammianus 15.4.11; compare emperor Julian’s tactics criticized by Gregor Nazianzenus,<br />
Oratio 5.13 as . Early Byzantine horse followed the rule Tacitus<br />
reports for <strong>Germanic</strong> warriors: that it is fine to give ground, so long as one turns back to the<br />
fight (Maurice, Strategikon 3.10.15).<br />
62 Ammianus 20.11.12. Bodmer, Krieger 1957, 120 (on Merovingians): “Nicht die Disziplin<br />
und die reibungslos funktionierende Organisation waren hier aus-schlaggebend, sondern der<br />
kriegerische Schwung.”<br />
63 Emperors now fighting with their own hands: Dio 77.13.2 (Caracalla); Herodian 7.2.6<br />
(Maximinus).<br />
64 Frank: Schopenhauer, Die Welt als Wille und Vorstellung, sect. 44. Julian, Misopogon 359c;<br />
. In the mid-fourth century there was again little difference between<br />
northern Gauls and Germani, as people from across the Rhine had been settled in many<br />
places and served in all army units.<br />
65 E.g. Saxo 51; Beck, “Stanzen” 1968, 240ff.<br />
66 Tacitus, Germania 22: “Gens non astuta nec callida”; Strabo 4.4.2<br />
(on Germani and Gauls): ; cf. Much, Germania 1967,<br />
310. Julian: Misopogon 337 C; 352 A; rustic “mores” : 359.<br />
Strabo 4.4.2 and Panegyrici Latini 3.(11).21 likewise praise these<br />
traits. Rives, Tacitus 1999, 212, ignoring Julian, errs in this.<br />
Scheibelreiter, Gesellschaft 1999, 372ff.<br />
67 Julian, Oratio 8 (to Sallust), 252 A; beer: Epigram 1.<br />
68 Ammianus 25.3.3 (to be understood like the “cavendi immemmor” 25.3.6). See Oxford Latin<br />
Dictionary s.v. “obliviscor.” Discussion: Bleckmann, Reichskrise 1992, 384. Ammianus<br />
25.3.6: “iras sequentium excitans audenter effunderet semet in pugnam.” The emperor’s<br />
followers lack cuirasses on Constantine’s Arch in Rome and on Galerius’ Arch in<br />
Thessalonica. Ammianus’ testimony excludes the suicide hypothesis of Wirth, “Perserkrieg”<br />
1978, 490.<br />
69 Julian, Letter to the Athenians 285 B-C; Ammianus 25.4.10: “augebat fiduciam militis<br />
dimicans inter primos.” Ammianus 21.13.13: “ascitis in societatem superbam auxiliaribus.”<br />
The Epitoma de Caesaribus 43.7 criticizes Julian’s military leadership as audax, “recklessly<br />
daring”; Gregor Nazianzenus Oratio 5.13 calls Julian’s tactics .<br />
70 Ammianus 25.3.10: “Incredibile dictu est quo quantoque ardore miles ad vindictam ira et<br />
dolore ferventior involabat, hastis ad scuta concrepans [a <strong>Germanic</strong> warrior custom] etiam<br />
mori, si tulisset fors, obstinatus.” See p. 73.<br />
71 Ammianus 31.12.16. Feigned flight: see p. 103. Overlooked: Elton, Warfare 1996, 266—see<br />
my review thereof, American Historical Review 1997, 1139.<br />
72 Ammianus 16.12.12: “stridore dentium frendentes.”
Notes 210<br />
73 Paulus Diaconus, Historia Langobardorum 1.20 (MGH, Scriptores rerum Longobardorum<br />
58.33ff.): “Qui sive ut expeditius bella gerent, sive ut inlatum ab hoste vulnus contemnerent,<br />
nudi pugnabant, operientes solummodo corporis verecunda.” Cf. Procopius, Persian War<br />
2.25 (some without shield); Iordanes, Getica 117; Sidonius Apollinaris, Carmina 7.236<br />
(speed); Much, Germania 1967, 139f.; Schmidt, Ostgermanen 1969, 563. Speed mattered,<br />
cf. Caesar, Gallic War, 1.52.3; Dio 38.49.1f. Baring oneself even worked for Romans:<br />
<strong>Germanic</strong>us took off his helmet in battle (Tacitus, Annals 2.21.2), and while he did not do it<br />
to dare the enemy at least he did it to be seen as brave by his own men. Swords: Maurice,<br />
Strategikon 12.4: .<br />
74 Schumacher, Germanendarstellungen 1935; Gabelmann, “Grabmonumente” 1973, 197;<br />
sestertius of Domitian RIC 278 (drawn with trousers, wrongly it seems, in Schumacher,<br />
Germanendarstellungen 1935, p. 43). Tacitus, Histories 2.11; 2.22; Germania 6: “nudi aut<br />
sagulo leves”; Hamberg, “Germanen” 1936, 33f. Since Latin nudus can mean “half-nude” or<br />
“unprotected”, Tacitus’ passages could also refer to trousered troops (contra Walser, Rom<br />
1951, 85). Much, Germania 1967, 140. Triumphal art: Hamberg, “Germanen” 1936, 32ff.<br />
On the other hand, spite for the loser may show the foe fully naked as on the gravestone of<br />
Dexileos (394 BC) in Athens, where the fallen, naked foe is a Greek who surely did not fight<br />
naked. Foes of Roman horsemen on gravestones in Mauretania and elsewhere are often<br />
naked, too (Schleiermacher, Reitergrabsteine 1984, 155, etc.), very likely also to spite them.<br />
75 Sixth-century Vendel helmet: Arrhenius, Chronology 1983, 44. Duel: Böhner, “Eschwege”<br />
1991, 719, fig. 5. Beck, Bilddenkmäler 1964, 45 and fig. 3. Later, on a Vendel grave 1 foil<br />
(about AD 630), the same hero wears a “kaftan” Beck, fig. 2.<br />
76 Gladiators: Kuhn, “Grenzen” 1956, 68–73; Kuhn, “Kämpen” 1968; see Wenskus,<br />
Stammesbildung 1961, 365.<br />
77 Mail: Even in the first and second centuries AD, some high-ranking <strong>Germanic</strong> warriors wore<br />
hauberks: Tacitus, Germania 24; Böhme, “Zeugnisse” 1975, 153–217, 214; Adler, Studien<br />
1993, 105. Early Middle Ages: Beowulf (Klaeber, Beowulf 1950, 311 s.v. byrne);<br />
Hildebrandslied (saro, gūđhamo). Hauck, “Germania-Texte” 1982, 195f.; vanishing<br />
nakedness: Hauck, “Dioskuren” 1984, 482–494, 485. Shirt: Saxo 208.25 (cf. Höfler,<br />
Runenstein 1952, 93): “subarmali tantum subucula fretus inermem telis thoracem opposuit.”<br />
Wolters, “Kampf” 2000, 212, sees this trend operating already in the first century AD, but<br />
offers no evidence.<br />
78 Bruce-Mitford, Sutton Hoo 1978, 186. Hauck, “Germania-Texte” 1982, 197. See also the<br />
Woden figurines from Ekhammar and Birka (Ringquist, “Människofigurer” 1969).<br />
79 Ulaid: Gantz, Myths 1985, 252. Irish legends: Güntert, Geschichten 1912, 30ff.; Birkhan,<br />
Kelten 1997, 960f. Tain: Davidson, Myths 1988, 89. When, on the other hand, in the<br />
thirteenth century Irish warriors went into battle bare-chested, bare-footed, and armed only<br />
with axes (Gerald of Wales, History 1982, 101; illustration: Keen, Warfare 1999, 84) they<br />
may have done so, like the ancient British (see p. 42), less to show their reckless daring than<br />
to cross the marshlands more easily.<br />
80 Eastern Europe: Procopius, Wars 7.14.26. Antes and Sklavenoi: Oxford Dictionary of<br />
Byzantium 3, 1991, 1910. Saxo 214f.<br />
81 Iranian Rustam: Schröder, “Indra” 1957, 23ff. The nairs of the sixteenth-century Malabar<br />
coast, cognate to Greek and Latin “Nero,” may also derive from Indo-European<br />
berserks: Speidel, “Berserks” 2002, 287ff. “Quick-tempered Männerbünde” in India: Bollée,<br />
“Sodalities” 1981.<br />
82 Bowmen against berserks: Livy 38.21.8ff. (189 BC); Tacitus, Annals 4.47 (AD 26); Dio<br />
77.14.1 (AD 213); Herodian 6.7.8 (AD 235); Ammianus 20.11.12; Procopius Persian Wars<br />
2.25.<br />
83 Bonded: McNeill, Keeping 1995, 8; 17; 102ff. Songs: Tacitus, Germania 3.1; Ammianus<br />
31.7.11. Dance: see p. 120; Eliade, Return 1954, 28f. Berserkdom’s relation to Woden is
Notes 211<br />
discussed by Höfler, Geheimbünde 1934, 197–206; Ninck, Wodan 1935, 34–67; Höfler,<br />
Runenstein 1952, 330ff.; de Vries, Religionsgeschichte II, 1957, 94ff.; Branston, Gods 1974,<br />
92ff. Shouting: IK 195 (Ulvsunda); Hauck, “Uber-lieferung” 1993, 454ff.; Hauck,<br />
“Polytheismus” 1994, 262ff.<br />
84 Gaesati: Polybius 2.29.6; Aztecs: Salmoral, America 1990, 202; Cendinnen, Aztecs 1991,<br />
117; Hassig, War 1992, 142; McNeill, Keeping 1995, 104. A Maya vase with naked<br />
warriors, holding each other by shoulder and midriff as they dance in a circle, can be seen in<br />
the Pre-Columbian Museum of Santiago de Chile.<br />
85 Cannae: Livy 22.46.6 (on bare-chested Gauls): “ante alios habitus harum gentium cum<br />
magnitudine corporum tum specie terribilis erat.” Saxo 208; this is the shirt of the Armilausi<br />
(p. 64, this volume). Football hooligans, however, are worlds apart from the religiously and<br />
mythologically underpinned berserks who decided the fate of nations, contra Mallory and<br />
McNeill, Archaeology 1991, 170f.<br />
86 Frighten: Dexippus, frag. 26.5. Eyes: Iliad 8.349: (Hector). Even<br />
Romans did this: Tacitus, Histories 3.3: “flagrans oculis”; Caesar, Gallic War 1.39: “acies<br />
oculorum”; Tacitus, Germania 4: “truces et caerulei oculi”; Ammianus 16.12.36: “elucebat<br />
quidam ex oculis furor”; also 21.13.15 (oculorum vestrorum vibratae lucis ardorem);<br />
31.13.10 (furore ex oculis lucente); Beowulf 726f.: “him ofēagum stōd/ligge gelīcost lēoht<br />
unfæger”; Helgaqviða Hundingsbana 1.6: “hvessir augo sem hildingar”; Vohunga saga 42;<br />
Saxo 7.11.1: Olo Vegetus, king of Denmark, frightened the bravest by his stern and flashing<br />
glance. Sturluson, Óláfs saga Helga 226; Bowra, Poetry 1952, 99; Much, Germania 1967,<br />
101; Norden, Urgeschichte 1974, 179; Grönbech, Kultur 1997, 266. Oðin is Báleygr, “flameeyed,”<br />
in Grímnismál 41.4, cf. Hauck, “Auswertung” 1998, 307.<br />
87 Amulets: Hauck, Goldbrakteaten 1985, 75; “Polytheismus” 1994, 262. Ammianus 16.12.46:<br />
“Alamanni, bella alacriter ineuntes, altius anhelabant velut quodam furoris afflatu opposita<br />
omnia deleturi.” Thrasarr: Hauck, “Polytheismus” 1994, 262. Drasulf: Müller,<br />
Personennamen 1970, 140. Snorting: see pp. 41; 88.<br />
88 Saxo 162, with the commentary by Davidson, Saxo 1979.<br />
89 Woden as a shape-shifter: Tunalund bracteate IK 193; Hauck, “Polytheismus” 1994, 262ff.;<br />
also the Daxlanden amulet (Fuchs, Alamannen 1997, 440, fig. 506); Hauck, Goldbrakteaten<br />
1970, 201. Snorri Sturluson, Ynglinga saga 6; compare Woden’s Indian counterpart Rudra as<br />
Vishvarupa: de Vries, Religionsgeschichte II, 1957, 95f.<br />
90 Wound-proof wolf- and bear-warriors: see pp. 43; 45. De Vries, Religionsgeschichte II 1957,<br />
97ff.; Höfler, “Berserker” 1976, 303; Grönbech, Kultur 1997, 274. Balder’s mythical<br />
woundlessness may also have come from his ecstatic dance: Snorri Sturluson, Gylfaginning<br />
49; Hauck, “Auswertung” 1998, 339; Hauck, “Kollierfund” 1998, 518—ecstatic dance,<br />
however, is no contrast to ecstatic fighting: it is its cause.<br />
91 CúChulainn: three times in Briciu’s Feast (Gantz, Myths 1981, 221–255); Birkhan, Kelten<br />
1997, 968ff. (ríastrad). Egil: Fell, Egils saga 1975, 84 (ch. 55). Indo-European and <strong>Germanic</strong><br />
warriors: Dumézil, Destiny 1970, 139ff.; Blaney, “Berserkr” 1972, 13; 36–63; Hauck,<br />
“Polytheismus” 1994, 263f. Vedic Indian: Puhvel, Mythology 1987, 51.<br />
92 Wikander, Vayu 1941; Widengren, Feudalismus 1969, 19. Cimbri: Plutarch, Marius 12.<br />
Goths: Ammianus 31.12.17. Woden: see p. 109.<br />
93 For example, Hrólfs saga Kraka 33f.; etc, see also p. 75f, this volume.<br />
94 Ammianus 16.12.49: “Latera, quae nudabat ira flagrantior.”<br />
95 Battle of Maldon 246f.; 253: yrra—mad with anger, 275. Berserk custom: see p. 78. Noretreat<br />
societies: Turney-High, War 1991, 211ff.<br />
96 Visby: Davidson, Sword 1962, 197. Personal despair: ibid. 202.<br />
97 Tacitus, Histories 1.79–2: “Omnis Sarmatarum virtus velut extra ipsos.” Bodies: Dio<br />
38.49.2: .
Notes 212<br />
98 Little to live for: Panegyrici Latini 12.24.2; Ammianus 21.13.13; see p. 194, this volume.<br />
Vergil, Aeneid 11.641; for this as a Roman ideal see Livy 42, 57–60, 2; Caesar, Gallic War<br />
7,52. Great-souled: Josephus, Jewish War 2.377; Iordanes, Getica 24. No trickery: “Caesar”,<br />
African War 73: “Contra Gallos, homines apertos minimeque insidiosos, qui per virtutem,<br />
non per dolum dimicare consuerunt.” Tacitus, Germania 22: “Gens non astuta nec callida.”<br />
Homer, Iliad 7.247f.; Julian: Ammianus 23.5.21. Maurice, Strategikon XI.3.21:<br />
. Settling beforehand: Plutarch, Marius 24; Reichert,<br />
“Mannesideal” 2001, 219. Vandals: Procopius, Vandal War 2.3–9; 2.3.14.<br />
99 Beowulf 679ff.; Battle of Maldon 89.<br />
100 Saxo 207, cf. Höfler, Runenstein 1952, 93f. Blinded: Saxo 109.16ff.; Flateyarbók II, 72;<br />
Kershaw, God 2000, 3ff. Blunted: Hávamál 148; Snorri Sturluson, Ynglinga saga 6. Woden<br />
protects from spears and swords: Hávamál 150; 158.<br />
101 Bleeding: Clayman, Encyclopedia 1998, 414.<br />
102 Roman hints of invulnerability: Vergil, Aeneid 7.692, “quem neque fas igni cuiquam nec<br />
sternere ferro” (Messapus); Pliny, Natural History 2.93.207–208 (Hirpi Sorani), cf. Alföldi,<br />
Struktur 1974, 77f.; 125; 187. Fire: see p. 74.<br />
103 Madness: Iliad 8.299 (Hector) and 21.542f. (Achilles); Strabo 4.4.2. De Vries,<br />
Religionsgeschichte II, 1957, 94ff.; Widengren, Feudalismus 1969, 45f.; Dumézil, Religion<br />
1970, 208–212. Madness of despair: Tacitus, Agricola 37.3: “Quidam inermes ultro ruere ac<br />
se morti offerre.” Panic: Polybios 2.30.4 (Telamon), see p. 60: ; Battle of<br />
the Standards, AD 1138, see p. 73.<br />
104 Wikander, Männerbund 1938, 59f.; Altheim, Niedergang I, 1952, 117; Pokorny,<br />
Wörterbuch 1959, 299ff.; Widengren, Feudalismus 1969, 19; Dumézil, Religion 1970, 211;<br />
Ivančik, “Guerriers” 1993, 326; Neumann et al. Schmuck 1995, no. 46: ais{i}g{a}z. The<br />
unknown nomen agentis from this root might be the Indo-European word for berserk, unless<br />
it is .<br />
105 Dumézil, Mythes 1939, 215 (= Idées romains 1969).<br />
106 Eleventh-century Adam of Bremen 4.26: “Wodan id est furor” (de Vries,<br />
Religionsgeschichte II, 1957, 94). Tacitus, Germania 9: “Deorum maxime Mercurium<br />
colunt.” Mercurii dies became Wednesday, hence Tacitus’ Mercurius meant Woden; Much,<br />
Germania 1967, 171ff.; Höfler, Runenstein 1952, 199ff.; de Vries, Religionsgeschichte II,<br />
26ff.; Timpe, Studien 1995, 114ff. God of poets: Hauck, “Erfinder” 1998, 37; Hauck,<br />
“Auswertung” 1998, 300 (with the image of the seer). A berserks’ poem: p. 76.<br />
107 Menos: Schmitt, Dichtung 1967, 104. Pokorny, Wörterbuch 1959, 726f., cf. .<br />
Identity: Beck, Bilddenkmäler 1964, 12. Eliade, Return 1954, 29<br />
108 Güntert, Geschichten 1912, 24ff.; 30; Davidson, Myths 1988, 87; Blaney, Berserkr 1972,<br />
10f.; contra Fabing, “Going Berserk” 1956; Ekstase, RGA 7, 1989, 91–94.<br />
109 See also Maurice, Strategikon 11.3.15ff.<br />
110 Howlett, Chronicles 1889, 190: “primo ingressu inermes armatis occurrerent istos, animi<br />
virtute pro scuto utentes”; 196: “Videres ut hericium spinis, ita Galwensem sagittis undique<br />
circumseptum, nichilominus vibrare gladium, et caeca quadam amentia proruentem nunc<br />
hostem caedere, nunc inanem aerem cassis ictibus verberare.” Ibid. p. 35: “Scotia…incolas<br />
barbaros habens…citis pedibus levique armaturae confidentes, anxium amarae mortis exitum<br />
pro nihilo ducentes.” Stephen Morillo kindly drew my attention to this battle.<br />
111 Howlett, Chroniles 1889, 162; 192; 197; Bradbury, “Battles” 1992, 191. Compare the flight<br />
of the berserks at Telamon: Polybios 2.28–29.7.<br />
112 Romans: Livy 38.21.8ff.; Herodian 6.7.8 (AD 235).<br />
113 Grágás 7. Weiser, Jünglingsweiher 1927, 44ff.; Blaney, “Berserkr” 1972, 149ff.; see p. 198,<br />
this volume.
Notes 213<br />
114 “Berserk” at first meant a warrior wearing a bear-hood and only later came to denote a mad<br />
fighter without armor as in Ynglinga saga 6; Haraldskvaeði 20f. (dated by von See,<br />
“Berserker” 1961, 131f. to the twelfth century). Höfler, Geheimbünde 1934, 26. Later<br />
tradition still knows that some berserks were wolf-warriors: Grettis saga 3; Haraldskvaeði<br />
20; see p. 37, this volume.<br />
115 Bullies: e.g. Egils saga 64; Grettis saga 19; Hrólfs saga Kraka; Vatnsdoela saga 33; 46;<br />
Laxdœla saga 60 and 62. Güntert, Geschichten 1912, 23; Ninck, Wodan 1935, 61. Christ’s<br />
disciples “sins berserks,” Christ “hinn vngi berserks guðs”: Barlaam saga 58; 196; Blaney,<br />
“Berserkr” 1972, 171ff. Saxo 21.1.<br />
116 Madmen: Morgenblaðið, June 10, 1999: Serb troops in Kosovo behaved “sem gengu<br />
berserksgang.” Berserks: Blaney, “Berserkr” 1972, 1ff. Howling: Grettis saga 19; blooddrinking:<br />
Hrólfs saga 23; Saxo 51; Blaney, “Berserkr” 1972, 80. Huge: Eyrbyggja saga 25;<br />
giants: Edda, Hábarðsljód 37–39; Güntert, Geschichten 1912, 23.<br />
117 Coals: Vatnsdœla saga 46; Saxo 186.25: “Igneos ventri carbones mandare non destitit.”<br />
Shield biting: Asmunds saga Kappabana 8; Ynglinga saga 6; Egils saga 64; Saxo, 186, etc.<br />
Fire: Snorri Sturluson, Ynglinga saga 6; Grettis saga 2; Vatnsdæla saga 46; compare Hrólfs<br />
saga Kraka 28; Eyrbyggja saga 25. Clubs: Edda, Hávamál 156; Sturluson, Skaldskaparmál<br />
44; Egils saga 9; Vatnsdœla saga 46; Helgisaga Óláfs konungs Haraldssonar (Blaney,<br />
“Berserkr” 1972, 85f). Güntert, Geschichten 1912, 12ff.; Höfler, Runenstein 1952, 93ff.<br />
Windpipe: Egils saga 66 (a wolf-warrior trait—see p. 36).<br />
118 Güntert, Geschichten 1912; Blaney, “Berserkr” 1972.<br />
119 Egils saga 9; Snorri Sturluson, Haralds saga Hárfagra 9; Grettis saga 2; cf. Höfler,<br />
“Berserker” 1976, 300; Fell, Egils saga 1975, 177f.<br />
120 Guard: Hrólfs saga Kraka 26; Sturluson, Skaldskaparmál 44; Güntert, Geschichten 1912;<br />
Höfler, Runenstein 1952, 303ff.; Höfler, Schriften 1992, 54; Kuhn, “Kämpen” 1968, 223;<br />
Widengren, Feudalismus 1969, 40; 52ff.; Alföldi, Struktur 1974, 124. See also the Rudriyas,<br />
this volume, p. 16. Twelve: Grettis saga 19; Höfler, “Berserker” 1976, 301f.; see also the<br />
twelve mesedi bodyguards of the Hittite king (Güterbock and van der Hout, Instruction<br />
1991, 7; Beal, Organization 1992, 212ff), the twelve Hittite warrior gods on parade in the<br />
rock shrine of Yazilikaya (Mallory, Search 1989, fig. 2), and the twelve (or so) E-QE-TA<br />
guardsmen of the Mycenaean kings (Deger-Jalkotzy, E-QE-TA 1978, 209). For an Icelandic-<br />
Norwegian warband of twelve, serving in Byzantium and Norway, see Laxdœla saga 73 and<br />
77; twelve as Icelandic companions in a feud: Eyrbyggja saga 18 and 20; Laxdœla saga 14;<br />
twelve as raiding bands: Egils saga 46. Strangely, Ebel, Kriegswesen 2001, claims that<br />
berserks never constituted a king’s war band.<br />
121 Ramses II: Drews, End 1993, 154. Hrólfs saga 24.<br />
122 Egils saga 53 as translated by Fell, Egils saga 1975, 80. Brunanburh: Jones, History 1984,<br />
237.<br />
123 Mycenae: battle scene on a silver vessel, shaft-grave IV; Höckmann, “Lanze” 1980, 278.<br />
Shardana: Drews, End 1993, 144f.; this volume, p. 59. Cf. Asmunds saga Kappabana 4, etc.<br />
124 Asmunds saga Kappabana 4; Missed, somewhat, by Davidson, Sword 1962, 202, and<br />
Blaney, “Berserkr” 1972.<br />
125 Vatnsdæla saga 16; Grettis saga: Blaney, “Berserkr” 1972, 5f.; Saxo 214f.; see also the<br />
archaic Greek statuettes (this volume, p. 59), the Watsch belt buckle (Kimmig,<br />
“Bewaffnung” 1976, 405 with plate 28a), and Alföldi, Reiteradel 1952, 49–53.<br />
126 Hákonarmál 4; Snorri Sturluson, Hákonar saga Góða 30 (and 6), following in part the<br />
translation by Hollander, Heimskringla 1964, 120.<br />
127 For example, Starkad in the fight against Herthjof: Gautreks saga (Genzmer, Edda 1997,<br />
335); Agner (Saxo 2.64); Harold Wartooth at Bråvalla (Höfler, Runenstein 1952, 93). Biarki<br />
in Hrólfs saga Kraka 32; cf. Hildibrand in Ásmundar saga Kappabana 8.<br />
128 Battle at Stamford Bridge: Snorri Sturlusson, Heimskringla, Haralds saga Sigurðarsonar<br />
92f. Fanciful: Jones, History 1984, 412.
Notes 214<br />
129 Tacitus, Histories 4.18; Germania 7, cf. Much, Germania 1967, 162f.; Dio 72.(71).11; Saxo<br />
38.39, also 214; 219; 222, etc., see figure 11.5; Ziegler, “Oðin” 1985, 62. Women warriors<br />
world-wide, see Turney-High, War 1991, 159ff.<br />
130 Eiriks Saga Rauða, 6. Women berserks discussed: von See, “Berserker” 1961, 130.<br />
131 Saxo 26.23f.: “Utraque ferrum comprimi iuvat manu;/nunc bella praeter scuta nudo<br />
pectore/exerceamus fulgidis mucronibus./Ferocitatis fama nostrae luceat;/audacter agmen<br />
obteramus hostium/nec longa nos exasperent certamina/fugaque fractus conquiescat<br />
impetus./Quo dicto geminam capulo manum iniciens, absque periculi respectu reflexo in<br />
tergum clipeo complures in necem egit.”<br />
132 See also Höfler, “Berserker” 1976, 298–304, 302f. Davidson, Sword 1962, 202.<br />
133 Saxo 77.9ff. Fisher, in Davidson and Fisher, Saxo 1979, 83, translates “muniendi corporis”<br />
as “to defend himself,” but it seems “to put on armor” is meant.<br />
134 Saxo 58.18ff.: “Attendite fortes!/Nemo lorica se vestiat interituri/corporis; extremum<br />
perstringat nexile ferrum;/in tergum redeant clipei, pugnemus apertis/ pectoribus, totos auro<br />
densate lacertos:/armillas dextrae excipiant, quo fortius ictus/collibrare queant at amarum<br />
figere vulnus./Nemo pedem referat!” Not to give ground: see p. 103, note 3.<br />
135 See p. 60.<br />
136 See p. 179.<br />
137 Jómsvíkinga saga 16; laws berserk-like: Blaney, “Berserkr” 1972, 143; a list of such laws:<br />
Davidson and Fisher, Saxo 1979, II, 86. Maldon: see p. 70f. Berserks equaled with Vikings:<br />
Grettis saga 19f.<br />
138 Saxo 208. Armilausi and (Danish) Heruli: see pp. 64; 68.<br />
139 Heat conquered by inner heat: Saxo 190; see p. 57, this volume.<br />
140 Saxo 185–187; also 155; 204. Woden: Edda, Hávamál 148; Grendel, Beowulf 804.<br />
141 Sexual rights for outstanding warriors, <strong>Germanic</strong>: Lactantius, De mortibus 38.5–7; Zosimus<br />
2.42.1; Grettis saga 19 (bringing them home again); Güntert, Geschichten 1912, 9ff.;<br />
Blaney, “Berserkr” 1972, 145f. Indo-European: Dumézil, Destiny 1970, 70f.; Mandelslo,<br />
Reysebeschreibung 1658, 141ff.; Plato, Republic 468b-c. World-wide: Turney-High, War<br />
1991, 158f. Sex for honored guests as a <strong>Germanic</strong> custom: Rigsthula, with the comment by<br />
Dronke, Edda II 1997, 119. Sons of such unions may have become Weihekrieger: Höfler,<br />
Runenstein 1952; Davidson and Fisher, Saxo 1979, 119.<br />
142 Mallory, Search 1989, 110f. and 272, claims 6,000 years of change, but 2,500 years will do.<br />
143 Contra: Puhvel, Mythology 1987, 196, who suggests “more ordered forms of society”<br />
outlawed them. Yet Eyrbyggja saga 25 shows that the more-ordered Norwegian society, like<br />
Trajan’s Rome, could use berserks, while the less-ordered Icelandic society could not.<br />
6<br />
GHOSTS<br />
1 Vidal-Naquet, Hunter 1986.<br />
2 Thucydides 4.67. Cf. Iliad 9.65–68.<br />
3 Vidal-Naquet, Hunter 1986, 110ff.<br />
4 As brilliantly shown by Vidal-Naquet, Hunter 1986.<br />
5 Ibid.<br />
6 Tacitus, Germania 43: “Apud Nahanarvalos antiquae religionis lucus ostenditur. Praesidet<br />
sacerdos muliebri ornatu, sed deos interpretatione Romana Castorem Pollucemque<br />
memorant. Ea vis numini, nomen Alcis. Nulla simulacra, nullum peregrinae superstitionis<br />
vestigium; ut fratres tamen, ut iuvenes venerantur. Ceterum alii [Harii?] super vires quibus<br />
enumeratos paulo ante populos antecedunt, truces insitae feritati arte ac tempore<br />
lenocinantur: nigra scuta, tincta corpora; atras ad proelia noctes legunt ipsaque formidine
Notes 215<br />
atque umbra feralis exercitus terrorem inferunt, nullo hostium sustinente novum ac velut<br />
infernum aspectum; nam primi in omnibus proeliis oculi vincuntur.” Boehlich, “Exercitus”<br />
1929; Timpe, Studien 1995, 126–131; Neumann, “Harii” 1999.<br />
7 <strong>Ancient</strong> British night attacks: Tacitus, Agricola 26; Roman: Tacitus, Histories 3.22f.;<br />
Byzantine: Maurice, Strategikon 9.2; North African: Nicolaus Damascenus, Ethnon<br />
Synagoge 24 (according to Boehlich, “Exercitus” 1929, 66); Pacific, African, and American:<br />
Turney-High, War 1991, 107–123. Night attacks impractical, impossible, and hence Tacitus<br />
not to be believed: Timpe, Studien 1995, 130, note 78.<br />
8 A relevant parallel from India are the Marut gods, wild young warriors, “who adorn<br />
themselves like women,” Ŗg-Veda 1.85.1 (Maurer, Pinnacles 1986, 130). Indo-European<br />
warriors who look like women: Ammianus 23.6.80 and Widengren, Feudalismus 1969, 20.<br />
For the Maruts see Widengren, Feudalismus 1969, 42f.; Bollée, “Sodalities” 1981, 180f.;<br />
Bremmer, “Suodales” 1982, 137; 143f.; Kershaw, God2000, 98–101; 201–239- Indo-<br />
European priests in women’s garb: Wenskus, “Religion” 1994, 222–5.<br />
9 Timpe, Studien 1995, 130: Jungmannschaft. Women’s dress as a punishment for unmanly<br />
warriors (Zosimus 3.3.5, cf. Ammianus 25.1.7–9) reflects the same custom; compare<br />
Oettinger, Eide 1976, 11; 75f.<br />
10 A discussion of the matter, proposing to read “Lugii”: Timpe, Studien 1995, 128; best:<br />
Neumann, “Harii” 1999<br />
11 Benveniste, Vocabulaire 1969, vol. 1, 112–113. McCone, “Hund” 1987; Kershaw, God<br />
2000. See also Jørgensen, Spoils 2003, 173.<br />
12 For youth groups forming new tribes see p. 23; Bremmer, “Suodales” 1982, 145. Tribes<br />
named after armies: Bollée, “Sodalities” 1981, 180f.; Neumann, “Harii” 1999.<br />
13 Tacitus says of them that in strength they “go before” (= lead) the other tribes, which<br />
suggests that they belonged to them; contra: Timpe, Studien 1995, 128, taking antecedunt to<br />
mean “im Gegensatz stehen,” but see e.g. Caesar, Civil War 3.108.4: “Ex duabus filiabus ea<br />
quae aetate antecedebat.” They thus match Tacitus’ list, a little further up, of the strongest of<br />
the Lugii, which begins with the Harii.<br />
14 Höfler, Geheimbünde 1934, 99ff.; 163ff.<br />
15 Timpe, Studien 1995, 126ff.<br />
16 Black: Boehlich, “Exercitus” 1929, 51; Army of the dead: Völuspá 52. Gainsaying Tacitus<br />
without source or argument: Wolters, “Kampf” 2000, 210.<br />
17 Hrólfs saga Kraka 33: “These dead are now the grimmest to fight against.”<br />
18 Boehlich, “Exercitus” 1929, 56 (“Urtyp des irdischen”); Höfler, Geheimbünde 1934, 44;<br />
166f.; 246ff.; Widengren, Feudalismus 1969, 56; Benveniste, Vocabulaire 1969, 112f.;<br />
Kershaw, God 2000, 41ff.<br />
19 For the Wild Host see now, with welcome documentation, Insley, “Herelingas” 1999;<br />
Kershaw, God 2000, 38–40. After a review of research over the last sixty years Kershaw<br />
(God 2000, 23) concludes that it is no longer possible to dismiss Höfler’s findings in his<br />
Geheimbünde. Contra: Timpe, Studien 1995, 131. Other <strong>Germanic</strong> warrior styles: see p.<br />
123f.<br />
20 Stealth and youth of wolf-warriors: see p. 15; Papuan spies too were “ghost people” (Turney-<br />
High, War 1991, 111). Worship of Dioscures: Wagner, “Dioskuren” 1960; compare the<br />
“night-Dioscure with the black goat-skin” of the Athenian ephebes: Jeanmaire, Couroi 1939,<br />
578f.<br />
21 Such as the Gaulish Petrucorii, who, as their name says, had four koryos troops.<br />
22 Black-clad Iranian and Indian youthful Männerbünde: Widengren, Feudalismus 1969, 35;<br />
51f.; Bollée, “Sodalities” 1981, 173 and 185; Kershaw, God 2000, 202f. According to<br />
Kershaw, God 2000, 42, the painted British warriors of Caesar (Gallic War 5.14) are also<br />
bodying forth dead ancestors. While there is abundant evidence for Indo-European<br />
Jungmannschaften (Widengren, Feudalismus 1969; Vidal-Naquet, Hunter 1986, 122;<br />
McCone, “Hund” 1987; Kershaw, God 2000), there is less, yet some evidence for them
Notes 216<br />
among ancient Germani: see Springer, “Kriegswesen” 2001, 341; contra: Castritius,<br />
“Jungmannschaften” 2000.<br />
7<br />
CLUB-WIELDERS<br />
1 Africans: Buchholz, Kriegswesen 1980, 334 and plate 25.b. Silius Italicus 3.277. Polynesians:<br />
Turney-High, War 1991, 13. Indians: Catlin, Letters 1973, I, 236. Drawbacks: Turney-High,<br />
War 1991, 12; but see 16: “Wherever too much armor is observed, one will find that the<br />
enemy fights with very effective war clubs.”<br />
2 Carneiro, “Warfare” 1990, 197 (Fiji); Whitehead, “Snake-<strong>Warriors</strong>” 1990, 151 (Caribs).<br />
3 Heroic use: Schröder, “Indra” 1957; Widengren, Feudalismus 1969, 34; 61; Wikander, Vayu<br />
1941, 33 and 125; Bhima, Kŗsaspa: Puhvel, Mythology 1987, 83 and 111. Kernosevka relief:<br />
Mallory, Search 1989, 176. Names: Mallory and Adams, Encyclopedia 1997, 112.<br />
Mycenaeans: Buchholz, Kriegswesen 1980, 334. Greeks: Iliad 7.140f.; Herodotus 1.59-<br />
Scythians: Valerius Flaccus 6.83: “Scytharum puer e primo torquens temone cateias.”<br />
4 Silius Italicus, Punica 2, 153ff.: “atque illi non hasta manu, non vertice cassis, sed fisus latis<br />
umeris et mole iuventae agmina vastabat clava nihil indigus ensis. Exuviae capiti impositae<br />
tegimenque leonis.” Club and lion skin turn this Saguntine priest of Hercules into an image<br />
of the god himself. Silius’ sources of information: Norden, Urgeschichte 1974, 165ff.<br />
5 Caesar, Gallic War 1.39–1: “ingenti magnitudine corporum”; 4.1.9: “immani corporum<br />
magnitudine”; African War 40.5: “mirifica corpora Gallorum Germanorumque”; Velleius<br />
2.106: “iuventus immensa corporibus”; Columella, Re Rust. 3.8: “Germaniam decoravit<br />
altissimorum hominum exercitibus.” Josephus Jewish War, 2.377; Suetonius, Caligula 47;<br />
Tacitus, Germania 4; 20.3; Histories 4.14.1; 4.29; 5.14.2; Diodore 37.1.5; Appian 4.1.3;<br />
Strabo 4.4.2; 7.1.2; Dio 38, 35; Manilius 4.715; Mela 3.26; Florus, Epistles 1.38; Dio 38.35;<br />
38.46.2; 38.49; Herodian 7.1.12; Dexippus frg. 26.6; Libanius Oratio 18.70; Ammianus<br />
16.12.47: “grandissimis illi corporibus freti”; Vegetius 1.1.4; Eunapius VI, frg. 37<br />
(Blockley); Sidonius, Carmen 12 (Burgundians as seven-foot giants); Zosimus 3.7.1;<br />
Iordanes, Getica 24. Skeletons: Fuchs, Alamannen 1997, 332f.<br />
6 Other scenes: 36; 38; 66; 70. Nail-studded: Cichorius, Reliefs II, 1896, 120; knotted, not nailstudded:<br />
Petersen, Kriege 1899, 29. Cichorius, Reliefs II, 1896, 114, saw the right hand of<br />
the kneeling foe “in unverständlicher Weise vor die Brust gelegt.”<br />
7 Cichorius, Reliefs II, 1896, 120 and 311, and Richmond, Army 1982, 20, suspend judgement<br />
on the nationality of the club-man, but for Germani being outstandingly tall see Figures 7.1<br />
and 21.1 also note 5. Similar bare-chested Germans in scene 108: Cichorius, Reliefs III,<br />
1900, 193. Relaxed: Panegyrici Latini 4.23.2: “Certum est enim pro negotii modo animosam<br />
esse virtutem—in parvis prope ad securitatem remissa.”<br />
8 Alföldi, Reiteradel 1952, 52; Wiedengren, Feudalismus 1969, 61f.<br />
9 To Lepper and Frere, Column 1988, 108 and 334, they are “clibanarii.”<br />
10 Like the Buri ambassador’s club in scene 9 of the Column. Throwing clubs: Kolias, Waffen<br />
1988, 173f.<br />
11 Artist curved the sword: Cichorius, Reliefs II, 1896, 191. The swords of the clubmen in<br />
scenes 24 and 36 (Figures 7.1, 0.2) seem also curved if one may judge from the angle of<br />
their hilts. The bare-chests in scene 108 of the Column, belonging to another tribe, have<br />
straight swords.<br />
12 Aeneid 7.730–732; 741: “Teutonico ritu soliti torquere cateias.” The Abellians, like the clubmen<br />
on Trajan’s Column, also had swords: Aeneid 7.743. Knowledge of the Teutons may<br />
have come to Vergil from narratives of their inroads in Italy seventy years earlier. Further<br />
combinations of club and curved sword are spun out of Vergil by Silius Italius (Punica
Notes 217<br />
3.277ff.; 8.581) for North African and Italic warriors. Practical: heavily mailed Sarmatian<br />
horsemen, once brought to the ground, were finished off with light swords: levi gladio,<br />
Tacitus, Histories 1.79.4.<br />
13 For example, Maurice, Strategikon XI.3. Overlooked as a Roman casualty: Cichorius, Reliefs<br />
II, 1896, 311; Gauer, Untersuchungen 1977, 98, n. 144.<br />
14 Tribesmen: scenes 24; 38; 40; 66; 70; 72; 115: six times in the first war, once in the second.<br />
In the second Dacian War (AD 105–106) <strong>Germanic</strong> tribal warriors, very likely club-men,<br />
turn up twice, though they seem to belong to other tribes. Scenes 108 and 115 show oriental<br />
archers different from those of the first war (Cichorius, Reliefs III, 1900, 193), hence<br />
Germani for the second war in these scenes may also be different. They certainly are so in<br />
scene 108, since they wear cloth caps (Cichorius, Reliefs III, 1900, 193) and, by analogy,<br />
perhaps also in scene 115. Cloth caps are worn by ambassadors whom Trajan met in AD<br />
105, hence they may denote a nation on the lower Danube such as the Bastarnae. One of the<br />
ambassadors lacks the cloth cap—and so do the <strong>Germanic</strong> fighters in scene 115. The barechests<br />
of scene 108, sandwiched between bowmen and stone-throwers, may be club-men,<br />
though they bear straight swords.<br />
15 Caesar, Gallic War 8.37: “sine ullo paene militis vulnere.” Tacitus, Annals 14.23.3:<br />
“hostilem audaciam externo sanguine ultus est,” cf. Tacitus, Annals 3.39; Germania 33.1;<br />
Alföldi, “Grenzscheide” 1950, 40. Tacitus, Agricola 35: “Ingens victoriae decus citra<br />
Romanum sanguinem bellandi.” Battles fought by auxiliaries only: Trajan’s Column, scenes<br />
24 and 38; Walser, Rom 1951, 39; Hanson, “Agricola” 1991, 1772; Lepper and Frere,<br />
Column 1988, 70.<br />
16 Tacitus, Germania 33. Claudian, Gothic War 579f.; Sixth Consulate 218–222; Cameron,<br />
Claudian 1970, 369ff.; Dewar, Claudian 1996, 202f.<br />
17 Cf. Saxo 66.20ff.: Thor with his club smashes shields.<br />
18 Herodotus 7.69; Burns, Persia 1962, 25ff. For the efficiency of Nubian bowmen see the Abu<br />
Simbel reliefs: Curto, Art 1971, 9, and L’Orange, Bildschmuck 1939, 45–47.<br />
19 Figures 7.3, 9.1, 17.3, 21.1; Agathias 2.5.3; Schumacher and Klumbach,<br />
Germanendarstellungen 1935.<br />
20 One other foe, in the top center, also lacks a shirt, but he has a garment slipping off his left<br />
shoulder.<br />
21 Plutarch, Marius 23.3; Seneca, De ira 1.11.3.<br />
22 Domaszewski, “Pferdeschmuck” 1888; Schumacher and Klumbach, Germanendarstellungen<br />
1935, p. 29, no. 114; Hamberg, “Germanen” 1936, 36.<br />
23 Club, not sword, contra Schumacher and Klumbach, Germanendarstellungen 1935, and<br />
Hamberg, “Germanen” 1936. Came to Dacia: Speidel, Studies II, 1992, 90ff. Tallest most<br />
dreaded: Herodian 7.1.12; most vulnerable: Herodian 6.7.8; 7.2.2; cf. Dio 77.14.1.<br />
24 Dio 78.38.4. Compare IK 65 (Gudbrandsdalen) where Woden throws aside his spear to close<br />
in with the sword.<br />
25 <strong>Germanic</strong> Herkules: Tacitus, Germania 3.1; Norden, Urgeschichte 1974, 172ff. Amulets:<br />
Werner, “Herkuleskeule” 1964; Wenskus, “Religion” 1994, 205ff. Singing: Tacitus,<br />
Germania 3.1: “Fuisse apud eos et Herculem memorant, primumque omnium virorum<br />
fortium ituri in proelia canunt.” Fighting the god’s battle: Eliade, Return 1954.<br />
26 Tacitus, Germania 45.2: “Aestiorum gentes…quibus ritus habitusque Sueborum …rarus<br />
ferri, frequens fustium usus.”<br />
27 Ammianus 31.7.12: “Barbarique ut reparabiles semper et celeres, ingentes clavas in nostros<br />
conicientes ambustas, mucronesque acrius resistentium pectoribus illidentes, sinistrum cornu<br />
perrumpunt.”<br />
28 Thompson, Early Germans 1965, 117, hesitatingly: “which may or may not have been an<br />
impromptu weapon.” Agathias 2.6.3 remarks on the easy repair of FrankishAlamannic<br />
weapons. Weapon repairs in <strong>Germanic</strong> armies: Steuer, “Kriegswesen” 2001, 366.<br />
29 Tacitus, Annals 4.51.1: “Manualia saxa, praeusta sudes, decisa robora iacere.”
Notes 218<br />
30 Silius Italicus, Punica 8.584: “inrasae robora clavae.” Much might be learned about<br />
<strong>Germanic</strong> clubs if one could be certain that the wooden implements found at the Great Moor<br />
near the Teutoburg Forest (Pieper, “Holzfunde” 1999) are weapons.<br />
31 Servius, auct. Aeneid, 7.741: “quas in hostem iaculantes lineis quibus eas adnexuerant,<br />
reciprocas faciebant.” Hawaiians: Arning, Notizen 1931, 57; Summers, Culture 1999, 102ff.<br />
32 Studies: Steuer, “Phasen” 1970; Raddatz, “Bewaffnung” 1976 and “Germanen” 1985;<br />
Weski, Waffen 1982; Adler, Studien 1993. Contra: Weski, “Material” 1994 (overlooking<br />
clubs). Efforts: Capelle, “Erkenntnismöglichkeiten” 1982, 287.<br />
33 Isidore, Etymologiae 18.7.7: “Clava est qualis fuit Herculis, dicta quod sit clavis ferreis<br />
invicem religata; et est cubito semis facta in longitudine. Haec et cateia, quam Horatius<br />
caiam dicit. Est enim genus Gallici teli ex materia quam maxime lenta, quae iacta quidem<br />
non longe propter gravitatem evolat, sed quo pervenit vi nimia perfringit; quod si ab artefice<br />
mittatur, rursum redit ad eum qui misit. Huic meminit Vergilius dicens (Aen. 7.741):<br />
‘Teutonico ritu soliti torquere cateias.’ Unde et eos Hispani et Galli tautanos vocant.”<br />
Birkhan, Kelten 1997, 1137, takes cateia for a spear, but both Servius and Isidore describe it<br />
as a club. (Servius’ term “hasta” if consistency was intended, may mean something like a<br />
stick.)<br />
34 Visigoths, Franks: Werner, “Bewaffnung” 1968, 102. Neither “cateia” nor “tautanus” have a<br />
compelling etymology, though: Werner, “Bewaffnung” 1968, 102; Birkhan, Kelten 1997,<br />
1137.<br />
35 No return: contra Hauck, “Bildzeugnisse” 1980, 569. Indo-European belief: e.g. Ovid,<br />
Metamorphoses 7.684; de Vries, Religionsgeschichte II, 1957, 127. Oberdorla: Behm-<br />
Blanke, “Seeheiligtum” 1958, 265; the full excavation report is now forthcoming. I thank the<br />
Landesarchäologin, Dr Sigrid Dušek for kind information and a photograph. Werner,<br />
“Bewaffnung” 1968, 102, first matched Isidore’s passage with the Oberdorla find. Mjöllnir:<br />
Skáldskaparmál 35; Simek, Dictionary 1993, 219.<br />
36 See also scene 78. Strobel, Dakerkriege 1984, 61.<br />
37 Zosimos 1.53.2:<br />
.<br />
38 Two gravestones are sometimes said to show Roman soldiers with clubs: CIL V 7717<br />
=Dessau, Inscriptiones 1892–1916, 2560=Iscr. It. IX, I, 93 of Cuneo/Italy, and a stone in the<br />
Museum at Smyrna published by Pfuhl and Möbius, Grabreliefs 1977, 296. Both portray not<br />
clubs but staff-slings (fustibali): see Vegetius III. 14 with the commentary by Milner,<br />
Vegetius 1993, 91 . It is true that a Spartan policeman, perhaps with his club, had joined<br />
Aurelius Verus in his Parthian war (Premerstein, “Untersuchungen” 1911), but town<br />
policemen surely could not decide big battles such as the one at Hemesa.<br />
39 Brought by Aurelian from the West: Ritterling, “Legio” 1924, 1344. Altheim, Niedergang II,<br />
1952, 428, suggests cohors XII Palaestinorum which, however, was stationed in Syria Coele<br />
that was part of the Palmyrenian Empire and not “outlandish.” <strong>Germanic</strong> recruits, but<br />
provincial names: Zosimus 1.52.3, calling Aurelian’s Raetian and Norican field detachments<br />
“<strong>Germanic</strong> troops.” Field detachments named after provinces: Zosimus 1.52.3; Speidel,<br />
“Chattan War” 1987, 234; Speidel, Studies II, 1992, 77 and 416f.<br />
40 Experience: Herodian 8.1.3 (surely also with Maximinus in Germany the year before);<br />
Nesselhauf, “Inschriften” 1937, 103. Franks under their duke Pompeianus in the battle of<br />
Hemesa: Hieronymus, Chronicle 263 Olymp. a 2 (Helm 222). As Persia fielded fully<br />
armored catafracts against Rome by the early third century, the Germani who helped Rome<br />
against the Persians at the time may have fought with such clubs (Maricq, Orientalia 1965,<br />
49; Bivar, “Equipment” 1972, 276f.).
Notes 219<br />
41 Birkhan, Kelten 1997, 1131, holds mattea to be the Celtic word for “club”; it may have been<br />
borrowed into Latin like gladius or lancea, and thus be used to describe <strong>Germanic</strong> troops.<br />
Mattiarii: Notitia Dignitatum, Or. 6.2=42; Grosse, Militärgeschichte 1920, 62; Hoffmann,<br />
Bewegungsheer I, 1969, 218–222. On mattiobarbuli as clubs see Kolias, Waffen 1988, 173ff.<br />
42 Panegyrici Latini 4.23.4: “Catafractos equites, in quibus maxime steterat pugnae robur, ipse<br />
tibi sumis.” Constantine had little choice in this as catafracts typically went for the enemy<br />
commander: Nikephoros Ouranos, Tactica 57.145ff. (McGeer, Dragori’s Teeth 1994, 104).<br />
Panegyrici Latini 4.24: “Catafractos equites…clavis adoriuntur, quae gravibus ferratisque<br />
nodis hostem vulneri non patentem caedendo defatigabant ac maxime capitibus afflictae,<br />
quos ictu perturbaverant, ruere cogebant. Tunc ire praecipites, labi reclinis, semineces<br />
vaccillare aut moribundi sedilibus attineri, permixta equorum clade impliciti iacere, qui<br />
reperto sauciandi loco passim equitem effreni dolore fundebant.” Panegyrici Latini 12.6.3–4;<br />
Nixon and Sayler-Rodgers, Praise 1994, 368f. (well translated).<br />
43 Libanius, Oratio 59.110 (overlooked by Nixon and Sayler-Rodgers, Praise 1994):<br />
.<br />
44 No reference to clubs is given in Bishop and Coulston, Equipment 1993.<br />
45 Widengren, Feudalismus 1969, 61; Buchholz, “Bewaffnung” 1976, 479.<br />
46 Prestige: Werner, “Herkuleskeule” 1964; Capelle, “Erkenntnismöglichkeiten” 1982, 280.<br />
Hauck, “Bildzeugnisse” 1980, 575, sees in IK 39 Woden holding a club, but it may be a<br />
jewel.<br />
47 Clubs against berserks: see Chapter 5, note 117. Höfler, Runenstein 1952, 93. Saxo 220.6f.:<br />
“Regem arietavit in terram, ereptamque cadenti clavam in ipsius caput detorsit proprioque<br />
eum gestamine interficit.” Höfler, Runenstein 1952, 89ff.; 100f.; Ninck, Wodan 1935, 24ff.<br />
48 Giants: Saxo 13.14ff. Shatter: Beowulf 2683ff. with Klaeber’s commentary.<br />
49 Konghell club: Stephens, Handbook 1884, 15f.: hauf thuükü f(ur) h(ari)= “headman of the<br />
army.” The club as token of command in the ancient Near East: Buchholz, Kriegswesen<br />
1980, 334f. No longer clubs: Thorne, “Clubs” 1982, though he misses the berserk meaning.<br />
50 Norman leaders bestowed shields with shield devices as gifts of honor: Höfler, Schriften<br />
1992, 126f. For their descent from Norway, see Snorri Sturluson, Haralds saga Harfagri<br />
241. Woden: Ordericus Vitalis, Historia Eccl. 8.17 (the Harlekin legend); Daxelmüller,<br />
“Geheimbünde” 1998, 563; Wenskus, “Religion” 1994, 226.<br />
51 MGH Legum Sectio II, Tomus 7, p. 172, Cap. I, 170.17 (Capitulare Aquisgranense);<br />
baculum used here is the same as on the Bayeux Tapestry, a striking, not a throwing club.<br />
Johanek, “Bewaffnung” 1976, 464; Capelle, “Erkenntnismöglichkeiten” 1982, 281.<br />
52 Contamine, War 1984, 73 and fig. 7. Rogers, Age 1999, 137.<br />
53 Stiklastad: Heimskringla, Óláfs saga Helga 226. Hastings: Bayeux tapestry; Thompson,<br />
Early Germans 1965, 117.<br />
54 Saxo 66.20ff.<br />
8<br />
WIELDERS OF HUGE SPEARS<br />
1 Thera: Cunliffe, Prehistory 1994, 229; Höckmann, “Lanze” 1980, 276. Hector: Iliad 6.318;<br />
8.794; Drews, End 1993, 192. Romans: Vergil, Aeneid 12.293f.; Statius, Thebaid 4.5–7.<br />
Hasta trabalis: see p. 139, note 29. Gauls: Diodore 5.30.4 and Lucanus, Pharsalia 1.423.<br />
2 Scandinavian rock-drawings: Cunliffe, Prehistory 1994, 324f.; Woden: de Vries,<br />
Religionsgeschichte II, 1956, 44ff.; 60. De Vries, Religionsgeschichte II, 1956, 46, has the<br />
same image for Val Camonica in northern Italy.
Notes 220<br />
3 Tacitus, Germania 6.1: “Ne ferrum quidem superest, sicut ex genere telorum colligitur. Rari<br />
gladiis aut maioribus lanceis utuntur.”<br />
4 Spears found: Adler, “Hastae” 1995. Use of iron: Much, Germania 1967, 128ff.; Raddatz,<br />
“Bewaffnung” 1976, 371; Rives, Tacitus 1999, 135ff. The suggestion (Wenskus,<br />
“Bewaffnung” 1976, 459) that Tacitus’ lanceae maiores were javelins with thongs lacks<br />
proof.<br />
5 Tacitus, Annals 1.64.2: “procera membra, hastae ingentes ad vulnera facienda quamvis<br />
procul.” Tacitus, Histories 5.18: “Immensis corporibus et praelongis hastis fluitantem<br />
labantemque militem eminus fodiebant.” See also Annals 2.14.2: “enormis hastas”; 2.21.1:<br />
“praelongas hastas”; Histories 2.88.3: “ingentibus telis”; Ovid, Ex Ponto 3.4.97: “damnatas<br />
hastas”; Lucanus 6.259: “longis Teutonus armis”; Dio 38.49.2. Haas, “Germanen” 1943/44,<br />
104; Much, Germania 1967, 136f. Adler, “Hastae” 1995, errs in assuming that Tacitus in his<br />
Histories and Annals describes long spears as a “weit verbreitetes Element der germanischen<br />
Bewaffnung.”<br />
6 See Tacitus, Annals 2.21.1.<br />
7 Dio 38.49.2; Tacitus, Annals 2.14.3: “Primam utcumque aciem hastatam, ceteris praeusta aut<br />
brevia tela.” 2.14.2: “Immensa barbarorum scuta.”<br />
8 Propaganda: Wenskus, “Bewaffnung” 1976, 458. Compare Much, Germania 1967, 136f.<br />
9 Contra: Adler, “Hastae” 1995.<br />
10 Tacitus, Annals 2.2.1: “cum ingens multitudo artis locis praelongas hastas non protenderet,<br />
non colligeret, neque adsultibus et velocitate corporum uteretur.”<br />
11 Graves: Adler, “Hastae” 1995, 100. Fought in front: Tacitus, Germania 7: “Duces exemplo<br />
potius quam imperio, si prompti, si conspicui, si ante aciem agant, admiratione praesunt.”<br />
12 Tacitus, Histories 2.88: “Ingentibus telis horrentes.”<br />
13 Strabo 4.4.3 (about Celts and Germani). Iliad 16.140 about Greeks. The biblical Book of<br />
Samuel (1.17.2; 2.21.15ff.) says the same about Philistines.<br />
14 Widukind 1.9: “armati longis lanceis,” quoted after Wenskus, “Bewaffnung” 1976, 459. The<br />
Goths under Belisar in Mesopotamia attacked with long spears in dense array and the<br />
Persians, rather than await it, turned to flight: Procopius, Persian Wars 2.18.24<br />
cf. Iordanes, Getica L.261: “Contis pugnantem Gothum”); but perhaps<br />
these Goths were horsemen. For the fourth century see Eusebius, Vita Constantini 4.7.2,<br />
whose seem to be weapons of <strong>Germanic</strong> allies.<br />
15 Snorri Sturlusson, Óláfs saga Helga, 214.<br />
16 Laxardal saga 21; Grettis saga 19. It is not a barbed spear, as translated by Faulkes, Sagas<br />
2001, 113; the krokar are likely to be the “Aufhalterhaken” of Carolingian winged spears.<br />
17 To be thrown: Steuer, “Bewaffnung” 1976, 443.<br />
18 Óláfs saga Helga 227.<br />
9<br />
SHIELD CASTLES<br />
1 Vidal-Naquet, Hunter 1986, 122.<br />
2 Iliad 4.334; 4.347; 13.130ff.; 15.618ff.; 16.211ff.; 17.354ff.; cf. Dio 38, 49f.: . Kuhn,<br />
Edda II, 1968, 58f. Celtiberians: Livy 40.40.2–8; McCall, Cavalry 1992, 60f.<br />
3 Ground: Tacitus, Histories 5.15; 5.18; Annals 1.64; Herodian 7.2.5; etc. Tactical retreat,<br />
ambush: Tacitus, Annals 1.63; Frontinus, Strategemata 2.3.23; Ammianus 16.12.23 and<br />
16.12.27. Feigned flight: Caesar, Civil War 1.44; cf. 4.4.4. Tacitus, Germania 6.4; Annals<br />
1.56; 1.63; 2.11: “fugam simulantes,” cf. 2.14; Herodian 6.3.7 (contrast with Persians);<br />
Maurice, Strategikon 4.3.30ff. Maurice, Strategikon 11.3, does not contradict this as he may
Notes 221<br />
refer to exceptional vows made by warriors on the battle field (Battle of Maldon 246 and<br />
275; Saxo 58.25; Bjarkamál as by Snorri Sturluson, Heimskringla, Óláfs saga Helga 208).<br />
For typical tactics of light troops compare Caesar, Civil War 1.44 (on Spanish Lusitani):<br />
“Genus erat pugnae militum illorum ut magno impetu primo procurrerent, audacter locum<br />
caperent, ordines suos non magnopere servarent, rari dispersique pugnarent, si premerentur,<br />
pedem referre et loco excedere non turpe existimarent”; also Smail, Warfare 1956, 78.<br />
4 <strong>Germanic</strong> tactics: Hamberg, “Germanen” 1936, 39ff.; Altheim, Niedergang II, 1952, 135f.;<br />
Adler, Studien 1993, 249; Wolters, “Kampf” 2000; Springer, “Kriegswesen” 2001. Roman<br />
line: Vegetius 3.20.1: “Una depugnatio est fronte longa quadro exercitu, sicut etiam nunc et<br />
prope semper solet proelium fieri.” <strong>Germanic</strong> columns: Tacitus, Germania 6.3: “Acies per<br />
cuneos componitur”; Histories 2.42.2: “catervis et cuneis concurrebant”; Ammianus<br />
16.12.20: “Densantes semet in cuneos.” Delbrück, History 1990, 39ff.; Miltner,<br />
“Waffenübung” 1954; Beck, “Fylking” 1998.<br />
5 Ariovistus: Caesar, Gallic War 1.51: “Generatimque constituerunt paribus intervallis,<br />
Harudes, Marcomannos, Triboces, Vangiones, Nemetes, Sedusiones, Suebos.” To form a<br />
shield-castle during battle was possible, practical, and useful, for Maurice prescribes it as<br />
well: Strategikon 12.B16.83ff. Caesar, Gallic War 1.52, “At Germani celeriter ex<br />
consuetudine sua phalange facta impetus gladiorum exceperunt. Reperti sunt complures<br />
nostri milites qui in phalangas insilirent at scuta manibus revellerent et desuper vulnerarent”;<br />
Dio 38.49f.; Florus 1.45.13; Orosius 6.7.8f. Contra: Adler, Studien 1993, 250. Shield<br />
buckles: Servius ad Aen. 11.284: “calcato umbone adversarii se in hostilem clipeum erigit<br />
miles et ita contra stantis vulnerat terga.”<br />
6 Cichorius, Reliefs II, 1886, 325ff.<br />
7 Other Roman auxilia could, of course, also form shield walls (Arrian, Ectaxis), but here they<br />
are advancing in step and combined with a club-wielder.<br />
8 Double shields needed against bowmen: Maurice, Strategikon 12.B16.30ff.; 12.B16.53ff.<br />
9 Ammianus 16.12.37: “Frontem artissimis conserens parmis.” The word parma to Ammianus<br />
means a non-Roman shield (cf. 29.5.39; 31.5.9), hence he speaks of the Alamanni: “Obnixi<br />
genibus quidam barbari peritissimi bellatores hostem propellere laborabant.” The passage is<br />
sometimes translated as if the Alamanni pushed the enemy with their knees. A controversy<br />
whether legionaries did this: Wheeler, “Firepower” 2001, 181, against Goldsworthy, Army<br />
1996, 229.<br />
10 Indo-European: Iliad 2.362f.; Much, Germania 1967, 161. Tribes of distinct warrior styles:<br />
Iordanes, Getica 261: “Cernere erat contis pugnantem Gothum, ense furentem Gepida, in<br />
vulnere suo Rugum tela frangentem, Suavum pede, Hunnum sagitta praesumere, Alanum<br />
gravi, Herulum levi armatura aciem strui.”<br />
11 Tacitus, Histories 4.23.2: “Batavi Transrhenanique, quo discreta virtus manifestius<br />
spectaretur, sibi quaeque gens consistunt”; 4.16.12: “Canninefates, Frisios, Batavos propriis<br />
cuneis componit”; 5.16: “Civilis haud porrecto agmine, sed cuneis adstitit.” Tribally aligned<br />
army of Odoacar: Iordanes, Romana 344; cf. Höfler, Runenstein 1952, 341. Roman warcraft<br />
likewise used competition among units to bring out the best in each: Dio 38.47.1; Tacitus,<br />
Agricola 21; 26.2; 36.2; Josephus, Jewish War 5.502f.; 6.142; Speidel, Riding 1994, 32;<br />
42f.; 60; 73 (note 90); Speidel, “Auxilia” 1996, 166; Stoll, Integration 2001, 35ff. Walser,<br />
Rom 1951, 95, doubts columns as “barbarian” battle formations (a “topos”); as he offers no<br />
proof, it is a case of Walser against the evidence.<br />
12 Tacitus, Germania 6.3: “Quos ex omne iuventute delectos ante aciem locant”; ibid. 7.1:<br />
“Duces si prompti, si conspicui, si ante aciem agant, admiratione praesunt.” Cf. ibid. 31.3:<br />
“Haec prima semper acies.”<br />
13 Tacitus, Histories 2.42.2: “catervis et cuneis concurrebant”; Annals 2.45: “vagis incursibus<br />
aut disiectas per catervas.” Drungi: Vegetius 3.19.2: “Circumveniantur tui a multitudine<br />
hostium aut a vagantibus globis, quos dicunt drungos.” Tempting to single combat: Altheim,
Notes 222<br />
Niedergang I, 1952, 121f.; Schmitt, “Buccellarii” 1984, 155. Compare Roman antesignani<br />
and Óláfs saga Helga 226, quoted on p. 109.<br />
14 Tacitus, Annals 2.21.1: “Velocitate corporum uteretur.”<br />
15 Ammianus 15.4.11: “non iusto proelio, sed discursionibus”; Tacitus, Annals 2.45: “vagis<br />
incursibus aut disiectas per catervas” (while with the Chatti, Tacitus, Germania 30.3, finds<br />
“rari excursus”). Thin lines of daring attackers: Maurice, Strategikon 12.A7. 17–19.<br />
16 Alacritas: Ammianus 16.12.46. Tellingly, Gallienus, that most forward-looking of all Roman<br />
emperors, cultivated alacritas on his coins: Alföldi, Weltkrise 1967, 12ff.<br />
17 Tacitus, Germania 7.1: “Si ante aciem agant, admiratione praesunt.” Ammianus 16.12.49<br />
(Strassburg, AD 367): “Exiluit itaque subito ardens optimatium globus, inter quos<br />
decernebant et reges”; Speidel, “Who Fought” 2000.<br />
18 Tacitus, Histories 4.20.3 (Bonn AD 70); Herodian 6.7.8 (mid-third century AD).<br />
19 Tacitus, Histories 4.20.3: “in cuneos congregantur, densi undique et frontem, tergaque ac<br />
latus tuti; sic tenuem nostrorum aciem perfringunt.” Maurice, Strategikon 12.B16.20ff, says<br />
how it is done: all bunch up toward the middle; clearly this is not a wedge. Strassburg:<br />
Ammianus 16.12.44: “nexam scutorum compagem.” Cunei are good for guarding the rear,<br />
just as Tacitus says: Maurice, Strategikon 12.A7.22f.<br />
20 Ammianus 17.13.9: “Exercitus…desinente in angustum fronte, quem habitum caput porci<br />
simplicitas militaris appellat, impetu disiecit ardente”; Vegetius 3.19.5 (quoted in note 22).<br />
Beck, “Fylking” 1998.<br />
21 Tacitus, Histories 3.5; 3.21 on the Suebian kings Sido and Italicus: “cum delectis popularium<br />
primori in acie versabantur.” Ammianus 16.12.24, on the Alamannic king Chnodomar:<br />
“anteibat cornu sinistrum.” Vegetius 3.19.5–7 in the fifth century, when the Roman army<br />
was at its most <strong>Germanic</strong>, recommends the boarhead formation to Roman leaders:<br />
“Secundus dux in media acie ponitur peditum, qui eam sustentet et firmet. Hic fortissimos<br />
pedites et bene armatos de illis superfluis [reserves=guards] secum habere debet, ex quibus<br />
aut ipse cuneum faciat et hostium aciem rumpat aut, si adversarii cuneum fecerint, ipse<br />
forficem faciat, ut cuneo illi possit occurrere.” Champion wolf- and bear-warriors and<br />
berserks: see pp. 33; 36; 44; 75.<br />
22 Vegetius 3.19.5: “Cuneus dicitur multitudo peditum, quae iuncta cum acie primo angustior<br />
deinde latior procedit et adversariorum ordines rumpit, quia a pluribus in unum locum tela<br />
mittunur.” Engström, “Chieftains” 1997, 249- There is nothing “unsinnig” here, contra<br />
Springer, “Kriegswesen” 2001, 340.<br />
23 Tacitus, Histories 2.22, see p. 115, this volume. Ammianus 21.12.13: “Quidam elatis super<br />
capita scutis ut pugnaturi levius.”<br />
24 Tacitus, Histories 4.23.2: “invasere vallum, adpositis plerique scalis, alii per testudinem<br />
suorum.”<br />
25 Caesar, Gallic War 1.52; Frontinus 1.45.13.<br />
26 Tacitus, Histories 2.22.1; 4.23.2.<br />
27 Tacitus, Germania 31.3: “Haec prima semper acies.”<br />
28 Large shields: Tacitus, Annals 2.14.2: “Immensa barbarorum scuta.” Large shields of<br />
Constantine’s <strong>Germanic</strong> guard: Constantine’s Arch, Rome, siege of Verona scene.<br />
29 Maurice, Strategikon 12.B16.30ff.: “They march in the ‘fulkon’ if…the soldiers in the front<br />
line lack armor or greaves.”<br />
30 Tacitus, Germania 6.4; Lex Salica 30.6. Greek parallels: Much, Germania 1967, 152f.; Stoll,<br />
“Gemeinschaft” 2002, 170f. Roman parallels: Plutarch, Caesar 16; Dio 49.16.1. The custom<br />
is a functional necessity; contra: von See, “Germane” 1981, 44f.<br />
31 Libanius, Oratio 59.130.<br />
32 Roman warfare adopted: Strobel, “Chattenkrieg” 1987, 429; Demandt, Staatsformen 1995,<br />
545, but Tacitus, Germania 30 does not call the Chatti “gelehrsame Schüler der Römer”;<br />
also Jahn, Bewaffnung 1916, 213; Stoll, Heer 2001, 269–279. Tacitus, Annals 2.45 refers to<br />
an exception, see Velleius 2.109. Right: Miltner, “Waffenübung” 1954; Schmidt,
Westgermanen 1970, 361; Raddatz, “Bewaffnung” 1976, 425. Sixth-century BC formation<br />
tactics in Europe north of the Alps: Kimmig, “Bewaffnung” 1976, 392f.<br />
33 Examples of the planlessness cliché: Norden, Germania 1974, 112ff. Dio 38.45<br />
even Maurice, Strategikon 4.1.17 speaks of<br />
“Lack of discipline”: see note 3.<br />
34 Caesar, Gallic War 1.39.1; 1.52; Tacitus, Annals 2.45.2; Velleius Paterculus 2.109.2, cf.<br />
Wolters, “Kampf’ 2000. Goths: Dexippos 26.5 (Jacoby 1923 IIA, 100, p. 469):<br />
2.5, …<br />
Notes 223<br />
Alamanni: Ammianus 16.12.37, “peritissimi bellatores.” Franks: Agathias<br />
.<br />
35 Caesar, Gallic War 1.40.8: “magis ratione et consilio quam virtute.”<br />
36 Wackernagel, Volkstum 1956, 128; 132, borne out by passages stressing <strong>Germanic</strong> battle<br />
discipline, such as Caesar, Gallic War 1.39–1; Velleius 2.109.2, and Tacitus, Germania 30.2.<br />
37 Schlüter and Wiegels, Rom 1999. The same strategy again in AD 15 and 16: Tacitus, Annals<br />
1.63; 2, 19–21; Franks, Rom 1980, 273–6.<br />
38 Turney-High, War 1991, 227f. Intense <strong>Germanic</strong> social organization: Lund-Hansen,<br />
Himlingøje 1995, 385–416.<br />
39 Cassiodorus, Varia 10.26.3; Reichert, Lexikon I, 1987, 552. Beck, Ebersignum 1965, 42.<br />
40 Strategikon 12.A7.52ff.<br />
41 Roman legionaries also put their shoulders against their shields when in a defensive line<br />
(Arrian, Ektaxis 26)—this is a technical necessity. Our point here is that <strong>Germanic</strong> warriors<br />
did it too, and did it well.<br />
42 Maurice, Strategikon 12.B16.34–38. <strong>Germanic</strong> guards are shown holding shields overlapping<br />
to their bosses (though not in two rows above each other) on the southwest side of<br />
Theodosius’ Obelisk in Byzantium.<br />
43 Folc: Battle of Maldon 22.241; 259; Beck, “Fylking” 1998; Maurice, Strategikon 11.3.17–<br />
18:<br />
.<br />
44 He says as much of the “Scythians”: Strategikon 11.2.50–55.<br />
45 Arrian, Tactica 36.1, prescribes this even for Roman horsemen. Saxo 43 and 65. Cf. Tacitus,<br />
Histories 5.18: “Absumptis quae iaciuntur.”<br />
46 Shield bosses (often silvered or gilt): Böhme, Grabfunde 1974, 111–114. Shields mattered<br />
greatly for pushing the enemy over: Tacitus, Agricola 36: “Batavi…ferire umbonibus.”<br />
Ammianus 31.5.9: (Goths) “Barbari…globos irrupere nostrorum incauti et parmas oppositis<br />
corporibus illidendo obuios hastis perforabant.” But the spiked bosses with which some<br />
Germani fitted their shields hardly served as a weapon; contra: Raddatz, “Bewaffnung”<br />
1976, 425. Adler, Studien 1993, 247, rightly states that Roman soldiers likewise shoved with<br />
their shields.<br />
47 Finds of staff-bosses: Raddatz, “Bewaffnung” 1976, 374; 425; 429 (silver-plated, from<br />
Sweden); 432f. (graves of leaders); 435. Steuer, “Bewaffnung” 1976, 440, records rich<br />
graves with hard-to-handle, big shields that seem well suited for front-line warriors in the<br />
“fylking,” cf. Tacitus, Annals 2.11.2: “immensa barbarorum scuta”; also Wenskus,<br />
“Bewaffnung” 1976, 461. Lothair: Ms. Lat. 266, Folio 1, verso, Bibliothèque Nationale,<br />
Paris.<br />
48 Third-century legionaries: Speidel, “Framework” 2002, 137, fig. 7.12. A Roman<br />
phalangarius in the mid-third century: Journal of Roman Studies 1988, 101.
Notes 224<br />
49 Förstemann, Namenbuch 1900, 551; see also ibid. Folchildis and Folcwig, “She/He of the<br />
Shield-Castle Fight.” Marching in step: Ammianus 19.6.5; figure 10.1; Franks, Rom 1980,<br />
54.<br />
50 Eyvind’s poem: Beck, “Stanzen” 1968, 247f. Likewise “Hjadnings’ storm” meant “battle” to<br />
Snorri Sturluson: Skáldskaparmál 62. Woden, wind, and storm: Höfler, Geheimbünde 1934,<br />
323–341; Dumézil, Destiny 1970, 138; see p. 70, this volume. Compare Dante, Inferno 22.2<br />
and the 1988 “Desert Storm” campaign. Warrior-style spirit: Maurice, Strategikon 11.3.13;<br />
Bodmer, Krieger 1957, 120 (on Merovingians): “Nicht die Disziplin und die reibungslos<br />
funktionierende Organisation waren hier ausschlaggebend, sondern der kriegerische<br />
Schwung.”<br />
51 Taught: Beck, Ebersignum 1965, 47. Discipline and ecstasy: Höfler, Schriften 1992, 17–28.<br />
52 Agathias 2.8; Saxo 31 and 207f. One cannot brush Agathias aside as does Springer,<br />
Kriegswesen 2001, 340, for the whole, detailed description of the battle at Capua is based<br />
upon the Frankish–Alamannic wedge formation; for Saxo 31 and 207f. see the commentary<br />
by Davidson and Fisher, Saxo 1979. Continuity of the boar-head formation: Beck,<br />
Ebersignum 1965, 41–47; Beck, “Fylking” 1998; Müller, “Tiersymbolik” 1968, 204. Array<br />
by tribes: Maurice, Strategikon 11.3.15: ; Wenskus, Stammesbildung 1961,<br />
497.<br />
53 Maurice, Strategikon 11.3.17, does not contradict this when he says the <strong>Germanic</strong> front line<br />
is even and packed, for the boarhead-wedge may be formed from the first line of a shield<br />
castle as in Vegetius 3.19.5f. and Óláfs saga Helga 226, cf. Davidson and Fisher, Saxo 1979,<br />
120ff.<br />
54 Hloðsquiða 32ff.: scialdborg; Snorri Sturlusson, Óláfs saga Helga 226; Saxo 43 and 65 with<br />
the commentary by Davidson and Fisher, Saxo 1979, II, 53.<br />
55 Battle of Maldon: “bæd hyra randan rihte heoldon” (20); wihaga (101f.); scyldburgh<br />
(242); bordweall (211). Much, Germania 1967, 142; Evans, Lords 1997, 38. The shield wall<br />
at Hastings, as seen on the Bayeux tapestry, thus had a long tradition.<br />
56 Anglo-Norman forces used it: Morillo, Warfare 1994, 157. On the attack, in the crusades:<br />
Hollister, Institutions 1962, 132ff.<br />
57 Óláfs saga Helga 226.<br />
10<br />
CHANTING<br />
1 Freeze: Ammianus 17.12.5: “stratisque plurimis quorum gressus vinxerat timor”; Ammianus<br />
31.7.13: “Lapsorum timore impeditorum secando suffragines.” Samoan war songs: Turney-<br />
High, War 1991, 218. Songs heighten feelings: Plato, Laws 812C. With a song of thunder<br />
and wind, the young Marut warriors of the Ŗg-Veda awakened Indra’s prowess, Ŗg-Veda<br />
1.85.2 and 10; they are heaven’s singers (5.57); Zimmer, Leben 1879, 294 (thunder, wind:<br />
Maurer, Pinnacles 1986, 131; 133). Greek Dioscuri inventing the war song: Estell, “Poetry”<br />
2000, 21ff. To the ancient Irish the battle gods invented the war-cry: Birkhan, Kelten 1997,<br />
642. Raising the spirit: Plutarch, Marius 19; Valerius Maximus 2.6.2; Tacitus, Germania 3:<br />
“Accendunt animos.”<br />
2 Plato, Republic 411; Ammianus 22.4.6.<br />
3 Tacitus, Annals 1.65: “laeto cantu aut truci sonore”; sonor is battle cry: Annals 14.36.<br />
4 Hercules among Germani: Tacitus, Germania 3.1: “Fuisse apud eos et Herculem memorant,<br />
primumque omnium virorum fortium ituri in proelia canunt”; for the concept “first of all<br />
men” see my paper “Lebensbeschreibungen” 2004. Spartans: Norden, Urgeschichte 1974,
Notes 225<br />
172ff.; Valerius Maximus 2.6.2 (quoted in Chapter 11, note 3). Arminius: Tacitus, Annals<br />
2.88.3.<br />
5 Goths: Ammianus 31.7.11: “Barbari vero maiorum laudes clamoribus stridebant inconditis”;<br />
Jordanes, Getica 43: “cantu maiorum facta modulationibus citharisque canebant”; Sidonius,<br />
Epistles 1.2.9; Demandt, Staatsformen 1995, 546. Fun: Julian, Misopogon 337c. Cantator:<br />
Maurice, Strategikon 2.19; the word means “singer,” not “herald” pace Dennis, Strategikon<br />
1984, 34.<br />
6 Ludwigslied 48: “Sang was gisungen, wig was begunnen.” Stiklastad: Sturluson, Óláfs saga<br />
Helga 208; Hastings: Much, Germania 1967, 57.<br />
7 Mythical battle: Eliade, Return 1954, 28f. Sigmund: Beowulf 875ff., see p. 33ff., this volume;<br />
Hercules and Siegfried: Norden, Urgeschichte 1974, 172ff.; Much, Germania 1967, 76.<br />
Beowulf: Hauck, “Germania-Texte” 1982, 209ff.; cf. Hauck, “Bilddenkmäler” 1976, 590ff.<br />
Thor, Woden and Balder as forebears: Simek, Dictionary 1993, 26ff. (Bældæg and Balder);<br />
374 (Woden).<br />
8 Birds: Iliad 3.2–6; Aeneid 7.705; Caesar, Civil War 3.92; Julian, Misopogon 337c. To Vergil,<br />
and hence to Tacitus, Germania 3 (though not to von See, “Germane” 1981, 53) this<br />
betokened admirable manhood; Klingner, Virgil 1967, 515ff.; Norden, Urgeschichte 1974,<br />
115ff. Even Jesus as warlord of heaven sounded like a crane: Papyrus Bodmer 29, 295<br />
(Kessels, “Vision” 1987, 340f.); cranes as warriors animals: Stoll, Integration 2001, 570;<br />
Brunetto Latini, in his Tesoro, says “Cranes fly in squadrons like horsemen riding to battle.”<br />
Silence is not always Roman nor shouting always “barbarian”: Caesar, Civil War 3.92.<br />
Arcadians: Xenophon, Anabasis 6.1.11. Paian: Polyaenus 3.9.8, see Stoll, “Gemeinschaft”<br />
2002, 168.<br />
9 Thracians: Xenophon, Anabasis 6.1.6 (the Sitalkas); Plato, Seventh Letter 348h; Tacitus,<br />
Annals 4.47: “more gentis carminibus et tripudiis persultabant.” Iberians: Diodor 5.34.5 and<br />
Silius Italicus 3.344–349: “misit dives Gallaecia pubem/barbara nunc patriis ululantem<br />
carmina linguis/nunc pedis alterno percussa verbere terra/ad numerum resonas gaudentem<br />
plaudere caetras.” Gauls: Livy 5.37.8 (387 BC) “Truci cantu, clamoribusque variis, horrendo<br />
cuncta compleverant sono”; Livy 38.17.3f.: “cantus ineuntium proelium et ululatus et<br />
tripudia.” Polybios 2.29–6 (at Telamon):<br />
. Britons: Tacitus Agricola 33<br />
10 Tacitus, Germania 3.1: “carmina quorum relatu quem barditum vocant, accendunt animos,<br />
futuraeque pugnae fortunam ipso cantu augurantur; terrent enim trepidantve prout sonuit<br />
acies, nec tamen voces illae quam virtutis concentus videntur. Affectatur praecipue asperitas<br />
soni et fractum murmur, obiectis ad os scutis, quo plenior et gravior vox repercussu<br />
intumescat.” Cf. Histories 2.22: “cohortes Germanorum, cantu truci”; 4.18.3: “virorum<br />
cantu…sonuit acies”; 5.15 “cantu aut clamore”; Annals 1.65.1: “laeto cantu aut truci<br />
sonore”; Annals 4.47 (quoted in Chapter 11, note 5); Norden, Urgeschichte 1974, 115ff.;<br />
Much, Germania 1967, 76ff.; 308; Beck, “Barditus” 1976; Rives, Tacitus 1999, 123f. The<br />
Romans did not call such songs “classica” pace Beck, “Feldgeschrei” 1994, 305.<br />
11 Romans: Livy 4.37.9; Plutarch, Crassus 27; Tacitus, Histories 4.18.3; Arrian, Ektaxis 25.<br />
Much, Germania 1967, 76ff. Caesar: Dio 38.45.5. Decius: Dexippos, frag. 26.6 (Jacoby,<br />
FGH II, A, no. 100, p. 469). Ammianus 16.12.43: “Cornuti enim et Brachiati usu proeliorum<br />
diuturno firmati eos iam gestu terrentes barritum ciere vel maximum. Qui clamor ipso<br />
fervore certaminum a tenui susurro exoriens paulatimque adolescens ritu extollitur fluctuum<br />
cautibus illisorum”; Vegetius 3.18.9: “Clamor autem, quem barritum vocant, prius non debet<br />
attolli quam acies utraque se iunxerit.” Heusler, “Dichtung” 1913, 499: “Kein blosses Hurra,<br />
sondern ein sinnvolles Feldgeschrei metrischen Taktes,” cf. Óláfs saga Helga 226.<br />
12 Ammianus 31.7.11: “Romani quidem voce undique Martia concinentes a minore solita ad<br />
maiorem protolli, quam gentilitate appellant barritum, vires validas erigebant.” Cf. 21.13.15.
Notes 226<br />
Learned from the Auxilia Palatina: Hoffmann, Bewegungsheer I, 1969, 135–137. Crashing<br />
waves: see p. 44, note 24; also Helgaqviða Hundingsbana in fyrri 28.5f.<br />
13 Edda, Lokasenna, Introduction: “þá skóko æsir skioldo sína ok œpðo at Loka”: “Then the<br />
Aesir shook their shields and yelled (howled or snarled like wolves see Hárbarðzlióð 47; or<br />
like the wind see Álvissmál 20: œpi) at Loki.” Davidson and Fisher, Saxo 1979, II, 77.<br />
14 Arwidsson, Valsgärde 1977, fig. 115; Hauck, “Kulte” 1980, 482. Eagle: Hauck,<br />
“Polytheismus” 1994, 270.<br />
15 Much, Germania 1967, 82f. Contra Lund, “Germania” 1991, 1879f. and 2027–2031,<br />
ignoring the Valgarde foils. If part of the barritus was a swooshing sound as described by<br />
Ammianus, it did indeed increase when thrown back by a shield, cf. Much, Germania 1967,<br />
82f.<br />
16 Act out a ritual: Hauck, “Polytheismus” 1994, 270, with reference to the picture stone from<br />
Stora Hammars I/Lärbro, Gotland, and the bracteate amulet from Ullerup Mark-A, IK 2, 358.<br />
For the “Vogelschlange” as Woden’s headgear see also the Kitnæs amulet (IK 92); Hauck,<br />
Goldbrakteater 1985, 101–103.<br />
17 Hávamál 156; Neckel, Edda 1962, 43. Tacitus rightly stressed: contra Norden, Urgeschichte<br />
1974, 122. Contra: Lund, “Germania” 1991, 1879f. and 2027–2031, though the Edda<br />
passage proves beyond cavil that the effect of sound on the mind worked, and was known,<br />
not only among Greeks and Romans but, naturally, also among <strong>Germanic</strong> warriors.<br />
11<br />
WAR DANCES<br />
1 Outdo: McNeill, Keeping 1995. Ecstasy brought forth: Meschke, Schwerttanz 1931, 4f.<br />
Ecstasy defined, divine: Beck, “Ekstase” 1989; Hauck, “Polytheismus” 1994, 262. Mangaia:<br />
Turney-High, War 1991, 166, cf. Eliade, Shamanism 1964, 458ff. War dances of American<br />
Indians: Catlin, Letters 1973, II, 242; McCone, “Hund” 1987, 126; Aztecs, Mayas: see p. 69-<br />
Dance against fear: Turney-High, War 1991, 215, also 41 (Jibaro); Whitehead, “Warfare”<br />
1990, 152 (Caribs). Pompeius Trogus 11.5.10.<br />
2 De Vries, Religionsgeschichte I, 1956, 443; cf. Alföldi, “Cornuti” 1959, 177. Emboldening:<br />
McNeill, Keeping 1995. Indo-European war dances: Kershaw, God 2000, 83ff. Tukulti-<br />
Ninurta Epic 5.4.31ff. (Foster, Muses 1996, 227). Atharva Veda 12.1.41: “The earth (=<br />
battlefield) on whom mortals sing and dance with various noises, on whom they fight, on<br />
whom the drum ‘speaks,’ may that earth rout my rivals, rid me of my foes”; for help with<br />
this I thank my teacher Walter Maurer. Wikander, Männerbund 1938, 67ff.; Widengren,<br />
Feudalismus 1969, 20; Dumézil, Religion 1970, 211; Birkhan, “Germanen” 1970, 549ff. On<br />
the Maruts see also McCone, “Hund” 1987, 120f.; Kershaw, Gods 2000, 98ff.; 213ff. A<br />
Hittite bearskin dancer: Mallory and Adams, Encyclopedia 1997, 56. Iranians: Curtius Rufus<br />
7.10.4; Widengren, Feudalismus 1969, 20f.; 56ff.; drums frenzied Iranian warriors: Altheim,<br />
Niedergang I, 1952, 46f. Ecstasy to ward off danger: Düwel, Runenkunde 2001, 13.<br />
3 Hector: Iliad 7.241: , for which see Beck,<br />
“Stanzen” 1968, 249; Estell, “Poetry” 2000, 37ff. Greeks: Scholia to Pindar, Pythian 2.69;<br />
Jeanmaire, Couroi 1939, 596ff.; Wheeler, Hoplomachia 1982; Estell, “Poetry” 2000, 21ff.;<br />
Spartans: Athenaeus, Deipnosophistae 630f.; Valerius Maximus 2.6.2: “Eiusdem ciuitatis<br />
exercitus non ante ad dimicandum descendere solebant quam tibiae concentu et anapaesti<br />
pedis modulo cohortationis calorem animo traxissent, uegeto et crebro ictus sono strenue<br />
hostem inuadere admoniti.” Quintilian, Institutions 1.17f.: “haec chironomia, quae est (in<br />
nomine ipso declaratur) lex gestus, et ab illis temporibus heroicis orta sit et a summis<br />
Graeciae viris atque ipso etiam Socrate probata, a Platone quoque in parte civilium posita
Notes 227<br />
virtutum,—Lacedaemonios quidem etiam saltationem quandam tamquam ad bella quoque<br />
utilem habuisse inter exercitationes accepimus.”<br />
4 Plato, Laws 803; 813; Athenaeus, Deiphosophistae 628f., aptly commented by Athenaeus<br />
when he says that dance “shows discipline and care for the body.” Stoll, Gemeinschaft 2002,<br />
166 (with literature).<br />
5 Thracians, Peace: Xenophon, Anabasis 6.1.5; North American Indians: Catlin, Letters 1973,<br />
II, 242. Battlefield: Tacitus, Annals 4.47: “more gentis cum carminibus et tripudiis<br />
persultabant.” Gallaecians: Silius Italicus 3.444ff.: “misit dives Callaecia pubem/barbara<br />
nunc patriis ululantem carmina linguis/nunc pedis alterno percussa verbere terra/ad numerum<br />
resonas gaudentem plaudere caetras”; Norden, Urgeschichte 1974, 165.<br />
6 Alpine tribes: Livy 21.42.3; Celtiberians: Livy 23.26.9 and 25.17.4: “armatum exercitum<br />
decucurisse cum tripudiis Hispanorum motibusque armorum et corporum suae cuique genti<br />
adsuetis.”<br />
7 Polybius 2.97.7; is dance, not just gestures as translated by W.R.Paton, Polybius, vol.<br />
I, Cambridge, Mass. 1967, 315. Appian, Keltika 8; Livy 38.17.4: “Gallorum ineuntium<br />
proelium ululatus et tripudia”; Tacitus, Agricola 33. Alföldi, “Cornuti” 1959, 177.<br />
8 Salii: Livy 1.20.4; Quintilian, Institutions 1.18: “neque id veteribus Romanis dedecori fuit:<br />
argumentum est sacerdotum nomine ac religione durans ad hoc tempus saltatio et illa in<br />
tertio Ciceronis de Oratore libro verba Crassi, quibus praecipit, ut orator utatur ‘laterum<br />
inclinatione forti ac virili non a scaena et histrionibus, sed ab armis aut etiam a palaestra’.”<br />
Bloch, “Danses” 1958; Latte, Religionsgeschichte 1960, 115; Beck, “Stanzen” 1968, 248f.;<br />
Dumézil, Religion 1970, 211; McCone, “Hund” 1987, 133; Kershaw, God 2000, 91ff.<br />
Romans and dance: Horsfall, “Romulus” 1971, 1114f. Mars Gradivus was not their leader in<br />
the dance (pace Beck, “Stanzen” 1968), for praesul in late antiquity is not just a dance leader<br />
but any kind of leader. Hector: Iliad 7.241; Arcadians: Xenophon 6.1.11.<br />
9 Saxo 75.5ff.<br />
10 Funeral: Hauck, “Ludus” 1951, 15; Hauck, “Herrschaftszeichen” 1954, 43; cf. Livy 25.17.4.<br />
Victory: Saxo 100; cf. Hauck, “Herrschaftszeichen” 1954, 43. Speech: Tacitus, Histories<br />
5.17.3; Ammianus 15.8.15. Banner: Ammianus 27.1.2. Gloat dances known the world over:<br />
Turney-High, War 1991, 143f. Exulting: Ammianus 23.5.24f.<br />
11 Plutarch, Aemilius Paulus 12( ).<br />
12 Plutarch, Marius 19.4; Much, Germania 1967, 84; tribal names were still shouted in the<br />
Middle Ages: Hauck, “Lebensnormen” 1955, 186–223, 210f.; Beck, “Feldgeschrei” 1994;<br />
the custom occurs also among the Aztecs in AD 1516, who shouted their cities’ names as a<br />
war cry: “Y los capitanes de ellos, que venían delante …apellidando sus provincias decían<br />
‘Mexico, Mexico, Temixtitan, Temixtitan’” (Cortés, Carta-Relación 2000, 229).<br />
13 Sugambri: Tacitus, Annals 4.47: “Sugambrae cohortis…cantuum et armorum tumultu<br />
trucem.” Raised: Alföldy, Hilfstruppen 1968, 84f.<br />
14 Similar war-cry shouting matches: Plutarch, Marius 19.4; Suda E 2310; Sturluson, Óláfs<br />
saga 226.<br />
15 Tacitus, Histories 2.22 (referring, it seems, to the troops of 2.17: Batavi and Transrhenani, cf.<br />
1.61.2): “temere subeuntes cohortes Germanorum, cantu truci et more patrio nudis<br />
corporibus super umeros scuta quatientium.” For the term “cohortes” in Tacitus see Kraft,<br />
Alen 1951, 38; Callies, “Truppen” 1964, 151f. A Batavian shield castle (“testudo”) attacking<br />
a wall: Tacitus, Histories 4.23.2.<br />
16 Tacitus, Histories 5.17.3: “ubi sono armorum tripudiisque (ita illis mos) adprobata sunt dicta,<br />
saxis glandibusque et ceteris missilibus proelium incipitur”; Hauck, “Germania-Texte” 1982,<br />
188f. Not part of the war dance is the clashing of weapons for approval, for which see<br />
Ammianus 15.8.15 etc. Vagdavercustis: de Vries, Religionsgeschichte II, 1957, 325. Iranian<br />
Sogdians also sang to the tripudium: Curtius Rufus 7.10.4.
Notes 228<br />
17 Ammianus 16.12.43: “eos iam gestu terrentes.” Penguin edition 1998, 112 (W. Hamilton):<br />
“bearing”; Seyfahrt, Ammianus Marcellinus 1975, 197: “Haltung”; Loeb edition 1971, 287<br />
(J.C. Rolfe): “gestures.” Dance: Oxford Latin Dictionary, p. 764 s.v. gestus, 1.b.<br />
18 Ammianus 29.5.38: “Conglobatis suis scutaque in formidabilem moventibus gestum.”<br />
Ammianus uses the word gestus again for the war dance in 14.2.17 and 18.7.7 (see note 24).<br />
19 Ammianus 16.12.44: “Nexa scutorum compago, quae nostros in modum testudinis tuebatur.”<br />
20 Ammianus 31.12.12: “Horrendo fragore, sibilantibus armis, pulsuque minaci scutorum,<br />
territi barbari.”<br />
21 Swaying: Meschke, Schwerttanz 1931, 4; dance, song, and music inseparable in Greek<br />
customs: Plato, Laws 816A; Estell, “Poetry” 2000, 22; 61. <strong>Germanic</strong> speech: Frye, Anatomy<br />
1957, 278f. (for “English” substitute “Old <strong>Germanic</strong>”).<br />
22 Themistius, Oratio 1.2a ( ); Julian 11b; Ammianus 16.5.10: “artemque<br />
modulatius incedendi per pyrricham concinentibus disceret fistulis”; cf. 18.7.7 (see note<br />
24)); 19.6.9. Greek pyrrhic war dance: Plato, Laws 815A; Strabo 10.3.8; Wheeler,<br />
“Hoplomachia” 1982; Estell, “Poetry” 2000, 35ff. Trajan apparently did not take up the<br />
advice by Dio Chrysostom (2.60–61) to institute war dances for honoring the gods and<br />
training the soldiers.<br />
23 Julian: Ammianus 24.6.10: “Cristatis galeis corusci Romani uibrantes qui clipeos uelut pedis<br />
anapaesti praecinentibus modulis lenius procedebant”; cf. Tacitus, Histories 5.17.3. Tripudium,<br />
“three-foot step”: Spartans: Valerius Maximus 2.6.2 (see note 3). Fifes also incited<br />
the tripudium of Apuleius, Metamorphoses 8.27.<br />
24 Ammianus 18.7.7: “Sabinianus…nihil formidans, more vitae remissioris fluxius agens,<br />
militari pyrrice sonantibus modulis pro histrionicis gestibus in silentio summo delectabatur.”<br />
The accusation is a cliché, see Herodian 7.8.5. “War dance” at the non-military pyrrhica of<br />
the time was indeed for stage actors (Robert and Robert, Bulletin 1987, 481), but Ammianus<br />
is at pains to say it was a pyrrhica militaris, for which see Historia Augusta, Hadrian, 19–8;<br />
Horsmann, Untersuchungen 1991, 147. Spartan festivals: Estell, “Poetry” 2000, 74ff.<br />
25 Vegetius 2.23.5: “insurgere tripudiantes in clipeum rursusque subsidere, nunc gestiendo<br />
provolare cum saltu nunc cedentes in terga resilire.” The translation by Milner, Vegetius<br />
1993, 57, ignores tripudiare and gestire. Goths: Ammianus 31, 59; “Parmas suppositis<br />
corporibus illidendo”, as the manuscripts have it.<br />
26 <strong>Germanic</strong> lack of discipline: Stoll, Heer 2000, 269ff.; but see also Caesar, Gallic War 1.36.7:<br />
“exercitatissimi in armis”; 39: “incredibili virtute atque exercitatione in armis.” For their<br />
“planlessness,” see Chapter 9, note 33.<br />
27 Also shown on Möne collar Holmquist Gods 1960.<br />
28 Saxo 156.6: “militaris pompae tripudium”; cf. Hauck, “Herrschaftszeichen” 1954, 43. Foot:<br />
Ammianus 24.6.8; see p. 153, this volume. Morillo, Warfare 1994, 162 (though with<br />
reference to Roman legions rather than barritus-chanting <strong>Germanic</strong> foot).<br />
29 Cf. Almgren Felszeichnungen 1934; Ninck, Wodan 1935, 214f.; Cunliffe, Prehistory 1994,<br />
324f. Date: 1500–300 BC.<br />
30 If they are not twin-dragon headgear, the two “horns” would be wolf ears rather than bull<br />
horns (contra Altheim, Literatur 1948, 300; Niedergang I, 1952, 116), as suggested by<br />
similar figures (musicians) from Kalleby, Tanum, in Almgren Felszeichnungen 1934, 8, fig.<br />
7.<br />
31 Ninck, Wodan 1935, 214f.; Altheim, Literatur 1948, 299f.; de Vries, Religionsgeschichte II,<br />
1957, 44f.<br />
32 Tacitus, Germania 24.1: “Genus spectaculorum unum atque in omni coetu idem: nudi<br />
iuvenes, quibus id ludicrum est, inter gladios se atque infestas frameas saltu iaciunt.<br />
Exercitatio artem paravit, ars decorem, non in quaestum tamen aut mercedem: quamvis<br />
audacis lasciviae pretium est voluptas spectantium.”
Notes 229<br />
33 That war dances could be spectacles to delight crowds is suggested by Ammianus 16.5.14 (as<br />
taxes were low): “Cum alacritate et tripudiis laetabantur”; cf. Livy 21.42.2.<br />
34 Tacitus, Germania 6; Adler, Studien 1993, 239; Evans, Lords 1997, 38f.<br />
35 Werner, Zierscheiben 1941, seeing here hunting scenes; Storgaard, “Aristocrats” 2003, 116f.,<br />
recognizes dancers and offers a good photograph.<br />
36 Hauck, Goldbrakteaten (I.3) 1985, no. 7; see also ibid. III.2, p. 129 and I.1, pp. 134ff., and<br />
Hauck, “Überlieferung” 1993, 442ff.<br />
37 For the shape of the hitherto overlooked belt compare Balder on IK 40, and the Björkö<br />
statuette: Ringquist, “Människofigurer” 1969. The naked tenth-century BC warriors from<br />
Grævenswange, Denmark, also wear helmet and belt (Demakopoulou, Gods 1999, 94). For<br />
power-belts see note 52. Here, as on the Finglesham belt buckle, the god’s penis too is<br />
shown (pace Hauck, “Bildzeugnisse” 1980, 568 and 575: “Geschlechtslosigkeit.”) Heroes<br />
over-armed: CúChulainn in Old Irish tales, cf. Birkhan, Kelten 1997, 967. The curved,<br />
jagged line on the right is a shield, perhaps in side view (like Constans’ medallion of AD<br />
340–350 from Aquileia, RIC 35) rather than truncated inside view (Hauck,<br />
“Brakteatenikonlogie” 1978, 397ff; “Bildzeugnisse” 1980, 568). For the “Hammertüllen” ax<br />
see Böhme, “Zeugnisse” 1993.<br />
38 Balder: IK 20; Woden: IK 128, cf. Hauck, “Auswertung” 1998, 307. Naked dancing, though,<br />
is not a Roman import, for it is found already in Tacitus, Germania 24.<br />
39 Boomerang: Hauck, “Bildzeugnisse” 1980, 569, and Capelle, “Erkenntnismöglichkeiten”<br />
1982, 278, who sees here a “gebogenes Wurfholz”; Hauck, “Germania-Texte” 1982, 190:<br />
“bumerangförmige Keule.” <strong>Germanic</strong> boomerangs: Isidore, Etymologies 18.7.7; Behm-<br />
Blanke, “Seeheiligtum” 1958, 265 (finds from Oberdorla, Thüringen that, naturally, look<br />
exactly like modern boomerangs).<br />
40 Compare the bent spear on the bracteate amulet from Tunalund (Hauck, Goldbrakteaten 1.3,<br />
1985, no. 7; Hauck, “Polytheismus” 1994, 269ff.) and the lance of the Dura-Europos<br />
catafract (e.g. Bivar, “Equipment” 1972, fig. 5). Sacrifice: Hauck, “Bildzeugnisse” 1980,<br />
569; Hauck, “Germania-Texte” 1982, 190.<br />
41 Vibrare, “to shake,” is Latin for throwing a spear: Tacitus, Germania 6.1; Seneca, Epistles<br />
36.7: “Si in Germania (natus esset) protinus puer tenerum hastile vibraret.” The swords of IK<br />
107 and 197 are likewise bent to show they are the dancing sword of IK 39.<br />
42 See e.g. the bent spear of the horseman on the Sutton Hoo helmet: Bruce-Mitford, Sutton<br />
Hoo 1978, 190, fig. 143.<br />
43 A fine parallel to this is a warrior vase of the Peruvian Nazca culture (AD 400–700), now in<br />
the Pre-Columbian Museum of Santiago de Chile, depicting several warriors dancing with<br />
outward-turned feet, each bounding between five or six parallel spears, as if they shook them<br />
with great strength.<br />
44 Mars: Hauck, “Bildzeugnisse” 1980, 568. There is no ground to call Woden “Mars-Woden”<br />
or even “Randkultur-Mars” (Hauck, “Veränderung” 1980, 241; “Überlieferung” 1993,<br />
441f.), merely because Adam of Bremen (4.25ff.) says Woden in Uppsala is depicted with<br />
weapons as Mars is in Bremen. Who would not portray a war god with weapons? Are<br />
therefore all war gods Mars? Clearly, Adam does not equate Woden with Mars, or call him<br />
Mars, or even liken him to Mars. Woden also wields an ax on the Beresina bracteate (IK 20):<br />
it may be one of his attributes.<br />
45 Hauck, Goldbrakteaten 1985, 134: “Federbusch.” Helmet crests, however, reach no deeper<br />
than a warrior’s neck. For a <strong>Germanic</strong> horned helmet with a long crest, see the Pruttning<br />
stele: Garbsch and Overbeck, Spätantike 1989, 71; it nevertheless reaches only to the<br />
warrior’s neck. Tantalizingly, Hauck, “Brakteatenikonologie” 1978, 397, also termed the Års<br />
crest “schlangenhaft.”<br />
46 Hauck, “Herrschaftszeichen” 1954, 47f.; “Adelskultur” 1957, 7f. To the ancients, snakes and<br />
dragons were the same. Snakes as dragons in Greece and Rome: Vergil, Aeneid 2.204 and<br />
2.225, cf. Servius, Aeneid 2.204; Thesaurus Linguae Latinae: “draco”; Merkelbach,
Notes 230<br />
“Drache” 1959, 226; Wild, Drachen 1962, 3ff. <strong>Germanic</strong> wyrm as both snake and dragon:<br />
Hauck, “Herrschaftszeichen” 1954, 38; Müller, Personennamen 1970, 64f. A comparable<br />
lone dragon on an East Iranian helmet: Widengren, Feudalismus 1969, 152ff.<br />
47 Constantine’s Arch: Alföldi, “Cornuti” 1959, fig. 4. A parallel bracteate amulet with a lonedragon<br />
headgear is IK 16 from Aschersleben, cf. Hauck, Goldbrakteaten 1970, 203ff. with<br />
plate (fig. 40, 1–4); remarkably, it shows the same neckband and Hauck rightly called it an<br />
“ältere Vorprägung” (Hauck, Goldbrakteaten 1970, 208). Other comparable headgear of<br />
Woden: IK 44; 50; 78; 79; 92; 191; 198.<br />
48 The Års dancer shows no horse tail, contra Hauck, “Bildzeugnisse” 1980, 569: see the<br />
upturned tail of the wolf on Franks Casket (Hauck, “Auzon” 1973); IK 99 (Kølby) may<br />
indeed show a horse tail—but without upturned end (Hauck, “Überlieferung” 1993, 445, fig.<br />
12c). Gudbrandsdalen: IK 65.<br />
49 Figurines: Ringquist, “Människofigurer” 1969; Bergquist, “Religion” 1999. Spur to war:<br />
Hárbarðzlióð 24. Virtus given by Woden: Chronica Æthelweardi (ed. A. Campbell, London<br />
1962) 1.3: “Sacrificium obtulerunt pagani, victoriae causa sive virtutis.” Ziegler, “Oðin”<br />
1985, 91. Adam of Bremen 4.26: “Bella gerit, hominique ministrat virtutem.”<br />
Madness=virtus: Florus 1.37, quoted on p. 57, this volume. Puhvel, Mythology 1987, 193:<br />
“He does not ‘embody’ martial ecstasy, he dispenses it, being himself devious and<br />
manipulative.” Here Woden “embodies” it in order to dispense it.<br />
50 God’s help: Sturluson, Heimskringla, Ynglinga saga 6; Hávamál 148; Óláfs saga Helga 228;<br />
Saxo 109. De Vries, Religionsgeschichte II, 1957, 56; Blaney, “Berserkr” 1972, 85ff.;<br />
Ziegler, “Oðin” 1985; Kershaw, God 2000, 4. Cf. Ŗg Veda 2.12.8; 10.121.6; 6.25.6; Zimmer,<br />
Leben 1879, 294; Iliad, passim; Tacitus, Germania 1.3 (Hercules); Beck, Bilddenkmäler<br />
1964, 32. In the Middle Ages: Beck, “Feldgeschrei” 1994, 305–306. “God with us”:<br />
Vegetius 3.5.4; Maurice, Strategikon 2.18.3; 7.B16.10. Adam of Bremen 4.26: “Wodan id<br />
est furor” (de Vries, Religionsgeschichte II, 1957, 94).<br />
51 Davidson, “Significance” 1965. Date: Siegmund, “Gürtel” 1999, 172f., no. 5.<br />
52 Power belts of gods and warriors: Snorra Edda, Gylfaginning 2.1: Thor’s belt doubles his<br />
might; Skáldskaparmál 18; Saxo 69.14f. Beck, Ebersignum 1965, 54; Kühn, “Christus-<br />
Schnallen” 1973, 56f.; Siegmund, “Gürtel” 1999, 176.<br />
53 Reichert, Lexikon II, 1990, 556.<br />
54 Woden: Böhner, “Eschwege” 1991, 716. Hauck, “Herrschaftszeichen” 1954, 46f.; Hauck,<br />
“Adelskultur” 1957, 15; Hauck, “Kulte” 1980, 519; Hauck, “Polytheismus” 1994, 241; 271;<br />
Beck, “Stanzen” 1968, 247f. It seems far-fetched to see here a one-eyed follower of Woden,<br />
such as the Batavian Civilis (Höfler, Runenstein 1952, 201) or Hagen of the Nibelungs<br />
(Hauck, “Adelskultur” 1957, 16f.). Not Woden: Alföldi, “Cornuti” 1959, 176; Davidson,<br />
“Significance” 1965, 32, note 38; Bruce-Mitford, Aspects 1974, 208. See Beck,<br />
Bilddenkmäler 1964, 40ff.; Böhner, “Eschwege” 1991, 712ff.; Arwidsson, Valsgärde 1977,<br />
125.<br />
55 Bergquist, “Religion” 1999<br />
56 Kitnæs: IK 92. Hauck, “Germania-Texte” 1982, 195, holds the Finglesham dancer to be one<br />
of the Dioscuri.<br />
57 Now in The Museum in St-Germain-en-Laye. Salin, Civilization, vol. 4, 1959, plate XI,<br />
facing p. 400; 573; Wallace-Hadrill, Church 1983, 28. Vallet, “Authenticité” 1989, 75–81.<br />
Jesus seen as a young hero: Dream of the Rood 39.<br />
58 IK 39; see also IK 79 with Procopius, Gothic Wars 4.31.20: “<br />
.”<br />
59 Drawing in Bruce-Mitford, Sutton Hoo 1978, 186ff., cf. p. 206f.; cf. Bruce-Mitford, Aspects<br />
1974, 208 with figs. 53b; 53c, and 54b. Other war dancers: Valsgarde, grave 7: Anwidsson,<br />
Valsgärde 1977, foil E, cf. pp. 119 and 122, cf. Hauck, “Polytheismus” 1994, 224ff. and<br />
Hauck, “Kulte” 1980, 497, fig. 18; also Hauck, “Wiedergabe” 1981, 234, fig. 41.
Notes 231<br />
60 Dioscuri: Wagner, “Dioskuren” 1960; Hauck, “Wiedergabe” 1981, 237ff.; Hauck,<br />
“Dioskuren” 1984; Hauck, “Polytheismus” 1994, 225ff.; contra: Böhner, “Eschwege” 1991,<br />
716. De Vries, Religionsgeschichte II, 1957, 247: “nur sehr fragmentarische Zeugnisse für<br />
einen Dioskurenkult.” Two spears with different blades, however, are worthless for<br />
identification of Dioscuri (pace Hauck, “Polytheismus” 1994, 327), since they are standard<br />
equipment of <strong>Germanic</strong> warriors: Adler, Studien 1993, 91, and Woden wields them on the<br />
Torslunda die. Inventors of war dance and song: Wagner, “Dioskuren” 1960, 225; Estell,<br />
“Poetry” 2000, 21ff.<br />
61 A relief at Mainz has much in common with the Sutton Hoo foil: Selzer, Steindenkmäler<br />
1988, fig. 37.<br />
62 Caenby: Bruce-Mitford, Sutton Hoo, 1978, 206.<br />
63 Dover: Hauck, “Wiedergabe” 1981,198, with fig. 13. Masks: see p. 124, this volume.<br />
64 Ringquist, “Människofigurer” 1969; Bergqvist, “Religion” 1999<br />
65 Hauck, “Auswertung” 1998, 307, comparing the bracteate amulet IK 128 (Nebenstedt) with<br />
the gold foil from Sorte Muld (type 280), three generations later.<br />
66 Skulason: Sturluson, Skaldskaparmál 53: “Snáks ber fald of fraeknu fólkvördr.”<br />
67 Embodied: Hauck, “Lebensnormen” 1955, 214f.; Goldbrakteaten 1970, 266f.; “Germania-<br />
Texte” 1982, 198; “Gudme” 1987; “Polytheismus” 1994, 225f., 241, 270. Possessed: Glúmr<br />
Geirason, Gráfeldardrápa 12 (AD 970): “Woden himself was in the Sea-<strong>Warriors</strong>” (after<br />
Much, Germania 1967, 160). De Vries, Religionsgeschichte II, 1957, 252ff.; Hauck,<br />
“Wiedergabe” 1981, 243; 253f.; see p. 31, this volume.<br />
68 Celts: Birkhan, Kelten 1997, 641 (on Uther Pendragon); Ammianus 16.12.39: “Caesar …quo<br />
agnito per purpureum signum draconis summitate hastae longioris aptatum.” Signum regis<br />
among Anglo-Saxons: Chaney, Cult 1970, 127ff. Norsemen: Snorri Sturlusson,<br />
Heimskringla, Óláfs saga Helga 49 (AD 1016). In scene 75 of Trajan’s Column, the Dacian<br />
dragons also seem to go with the king.<br />
69 Förstemann, Namenbuch 1900, 1665; Kaufmann, Personennamen 1968, 418; Werner,<br />
Heilsbilder 1963.<br />
70 Axboe et al., “Gallehus” 1998.<br />
71 Eliade, Myth 1963, 6.<br />
72 Ringquist, “Människofigurer” 1969.<br />
73 Beck, Bilddenkmäler 1964, 50; Beck, “Stanzen” 1968; Hauck, “Polytheismus” 1994, 214ff.<br />
Höfler, Geheimbünde 1934, 157; Alföldi, “Cornuti” 1959, 177; Hauck, “Germania-Texte”<br />
1982, 189ff.<br />
74 Procopius, Gothic Wars 4.31.18ff.<br />
75 Beowulf: “sweorda gelac” and “ecga gelac” are metaphors for battle: Hauck,<br />
“Herrschaftszeichen” 1954, 9; laikaz: Beck, “Stanzen” 1968, 244.<br />
76 Beck, “Stanzen” 1968, 245ff.; cf. Förstemann, Namenbuch 1900, 996; Kaufmann,<br />
Personennamen 1968, 223. A fifth-century runic inscription from Norway has the name<br />
HadulaikaR, “Battle-Dancer” (Reichert, Lexikon I, 1987, 417).<br />
77 Athenaeus 155B; Werner, Waffentanz 1968.<br />
78 Twin-dragon dancers: München-Feldmoching, grave 229; Prähistorische Staatssammlung<br />
inv. 1952, 1006 Dannheimer and Ulbert, Reihengräber 1956, 22. Wolf-warriors:<br />
Oberwarngau, grave 171, inv. nr. 1953, 308, unpublished. Long-hairs: Oberwarngau, grave<br />
161. Such belts are datable to AD 640–670: Siegmund, “Gürtel” 1999, 172, no. 9.<br />
79 They have long been recognized as masks, see e.g. von Freeden, “Gräberfeld” 1987, 538.<br />
Rectangular masks are not unusual and are known, for example, among the Tlingit of<br />
America’s northwest coast: see Siebert and Forman, Art 1967, plates 29ff.<br />
80 Twin-dragon headgear is seen also on a belt-fitting from Alamannic Buggingen: Christlein,<br />
Alemannen 1979, plate 81. See also Figure 1.4.<br />
81 Meuli, “Maske” 1933; Eliade, Return 1954, 53 and 70; Kershaw, God 2000, 26ff.
Notes 232<br />
82 Grönbech, Kultur 1997, II, 218ff.; Höfler, Geheimbünde 1934, 44ff.; 154ff.; 250ff.; Hauck,<br />
“Lebensnormen” 1955; Kershaw, God 2000, 26ff.<br />
83 The next ones come from the Viking age, more than two hundred years later: Beck,<br />
“Maske”, RGA 19, 2001. From the ninth century comes a small bronze mask with<br />
comparable, stylized, very long hair, found at Voel/Denmark and now at Silkeborg Museum<br />
(kind information by Knud Bjerring Jensen).<br />
84 Wolf-ancestors: see p. 22f; Woden, ancestor of kings: see p. 35. Isengrim: Meuli, “Maske”<br />
1933, 177 If. The black mask further up on the strap-end may stand for the blackened<br />
commoner ancestors we have met as Harii. Meuli, “Maske” 1933, 1771f., records that in<br />
Switzerland, wolf-mask festivals survive to this day under the name of Isengrim, “ironcolor<br />
mask,” with blackened youths dancing along. Wolf-dancers (Vulfolaic): see p. 29.<br />
85 Tacitus, Germania 3.1; Histories 5.17.2; Ammianus 31.7.11; Iordanes, Getica 43.<br />
86 Hauck, “Herrschaftszeichen” 1954, 43 Childerich: Wenskus “Religion” 1994, 226–7.<br />
87 Hauck, “Ludus” 1951.<br />
88 Förstemann, Namenbuch 1900, 128; Reichert, Lexikon I, 1987, 54.<br />
89 Marstrander, Skipene 1986, 132.<br />
90 The dragon heads seem to point outward (as they also do on one of the Bavarian strap ends),<br />
a variant of the design, unless the crests of the dragon heads are meant.<br />
91 Edda , Lokasenna, Introduction 14f.<br />
12<br />
DART-THROWERS<br />
1 Bronze Age: Drews, End 1993, 180ff. Spear bundles of Roman horsemen: Schleiermacher,<br />
Reitergrabsteine 1984, 117; Speidel, Denkmäler 1994, 686 (CIL III, 7317); gravestone of<br />
Oclatius, Neuss (AE 1926, 67); gravestone of Ael. Victorinus from Pannonia (CIL III<br />
3677=10609=Schober, Grabsteine 1923, 259=Speidel, “Mauri” 1993, fig. 4). Spear bundles<br />
of Roman foot: gravestone of M. Porcius Probus, CIL V, 5196=Franzoni, Habitus 1987,<br />
80ff.—Bishop and Coulston, Equipment 1993, frontispiece: there the bundle is recognized,<br />
but not the role of the small shield, for which see Diodore 5.34.5 and Speidel, Denkmäler<br />
1994, no. 686. Such reliefs are few, hence this was not a major weapon. Arrian, Tactica<br />
43.1: .<br />
2 Tacitus, Annals 2.14.3: “Primam utcumque aciem hastatam, ceteris praeusta aut brevia tela.”<br />
3 Tacitus, Germania 6.1: “Pedites et missilia spargunt, pluraque singuli, atque in immensum<br />
vibrant, nudi aut sagulo leves.”<br />
4 Not rocks: Much, Germania 1967, 139- Not clubs: Isidore, Etymologies 18.7.7: “Clava<br />
…iacta quidem non longe evolat propter gravitatem,” cf. Wenskus, “Bewaffnung” 1976,<br />
458.<br />
5 There is no reason to assume that the missilia were frameae (Adler, Studien 1993, 242) and<br />
that therefore Tacitus needlessly made “a distinction that the Germani themselves did not<br />
make” (Rives, Tacitus 1999, 140); to do so is also to overlook the word et in Tacitus’ text<br />
that sets missilia off from frameae. See also Vegetius 2.14.3.<br />
6 Strabo 4.4.3. Cf. Polybios 6.22, where the grosphus is said to be as thick as a finger.<br />
7 British Museum 1946, Oc. 1.1.<br />
8 Vegetius 2.15.5.<br />
9 Sviða: Buchholz, “Bewaffnung” 1976, 478. See also Isidore, Origines 18.7.2: “Contus ferrum<br />
non habet sed tantum cuspite acuto est.” Bone-tipped: Hamberg, “Germanen” 1936, 46.<br />
Horn-tipped: Pliny, Natural History 11.45, “Urorum cornibus barbari<br />
septentrionales…praefixa hastilia cuspidant.” All kinds of spears without iron blades: Jahn,<br />
Bewaffnung 1916, 217; Wenskus, “Bewaffnung” 1976, 458; Capelle,
Notes 233<br />
“Erkenntnismöglichkeiten” 1982, 278ff.; Pieper, “Holzfunde” 1999, 520. Contra: Weski,<br />
Waffen 1994.<br />
10 Crous, “Waffenpfeiler” 1933, no. 468. Spear bundles of the fourth and fifth centuries:<br />
Werner, “Bewaffnung” 1968, 104; Böhme, Grabfunde 1974, 110f.<br />
11 However, a short, smooth-bladed spear could be used by foot warriors against horsemen as<br />
in figure 17.4.<br />
12 Even Norwegian kings threw darts—from shipboard, with both hands or two at a time:<br />
Snorri Sturlusson, Óláfs saga Tryggvasonar 109; Óláfs saga Helga 249.<br />
13 Tacitus, Histories 5.17.3. Skirmishers generally: Vegetius 3.14.11; Ammianus 24.6.10.<br />
14 Óláfs saga Helga 226.<br />
13<br />
ROCK-THROWERS<br />
1 Mardonios: Plutarch, Aristeides 19; compare Ammianus 20.7.10; 31.10.14; Suetonius,<br />
Augustus 20.1.<br />
2 Caesar, Gallic War 1.46.1: “Caesari nuntiatum est equites Ariovisti propius tumulum accedere<br />
et ad nostros adequitare, lapides telaque in nostros coicere.”<br />
3 Batavi: Arrian, Tactica 43.1; Speidel, Riding 1994, 113. Mistaken: Thompson, Early Germans<br />
1965, 115.<br />
4 Weight: Vegetius 4.22.8; Baatz, Bauten 1994, 121f. Pusio: Dio 56.11; cf. Homer, Iliad<br />
12.442f.; Tacitus, Histories 2.22.1 Speidel, Riding 1994, 18. The rock-throwers on Trajan’s<br />
Column, scene 66, are Britons, as I will show elsewhere. Goths: Dexippus, Scythica, FGH<br />
467, frag. 25.<br />
5 Vegetius 2.23; 3.14; 4.8; 4.17; 4.29, 4.44. Childhood: Speidel, Riding 1994, plate 14.<br />
6 Supply: Maurice 9.3.28; Albrethsen, “Problems” 1997. Repair and replenish: Ammianus<br />
31.7.12; Agathias 2.6.3, see p. 93, this volume.<br />
7 Recovered: Völling, “Funditores” 1990, 31f. Written sources ibid. 55. Sea battles: Saxo<br />
111.19f.<br />
8 Bowmen: Thompson, Early Germans 1965, 116f.; Böhme, Grabfunde 1974, 110f.; Raddatz,<br />
“Bewaffnung” 1976, 429f.; 435; Wenskus, “Bewaffnung” 1976, 459; Speidel,<br />
“Lebensbeschreibungen” 2004. Bowmen despised: Altheim, Niedergang II, 1952, 133.<br />
9 Sagas: Beck, Ebersignum 1965, 42. Stiklastad: Óláfs saga Helga 226.<br />
10 Morillo, Warfare 1994, 191. Compare also Saxo 220.<br />
14<br />
LANCERS<br />
1 Mycenaean: Mouliana burial, Cunliffe, Prehistory 1994, 284. Massagetae, Medians: Eadie,<br />
“Development” 1967, 161ff. Iran: Altheim, Niedergang I, 1952, 19ff.; Sassanians: Bivar,<br />
“Equipment” 1972, fig. 10.<br />
2 Hallstadt scabbard, now in the Naturhistorisches Museum, Wien: Pauli, Kelten 1980, 260f.;<br />
Celtic lances: Birkhan, Kelten, 1997, 1136. Lancers among Scythians: Sembach, Gold 1984,<br />
no. 55; Sarmatians: see notes 11 and 16–18; in the Roman imperial army: Hoffmann,<br />
Bewegungsheer I, 1969, 265ff.<br />
3 Polybius 6.253–11; McCall, Cavalry 1992, 27ff.<br />
4 Cichorius, Reliefs II, 1896, 39; Speidel, Guards 1978, 47; Strobel, Dakerkriege 1984, 104.
Notes 234<br />
5 Lances were good not only for battle but also for crowd control, see Apuleius, Metamorphoses<br />
10.1: “Lancea longissimo hastili conspicuo propter terrendos miseros viatores.” The men in<br />
scene 5 thus may be the hastiliarii of the bodyguard: Speidel, Denkmäler 1994, 12f. (in war,<br />
no doubt, their lances had metal blades). For the use of <strong>Germanic</strong> weapons among the<br />
bodyguard see p. 143.<br />
6 For example, Constantine’s horse guards on his porphyry sarcophagus in the Vatican<br />
Museum.<br />
7 Only foot: Adler, “Hastae” 1995, 96. Spurs: ibid. 100.<br />
8 Batavi: Plutarch, Otho 12.5.<br />
9 Found on Bergl hill, now in the Museum of Rusovce-Bratislava, Slovakia. I owe the<br />
photograph to the kindness of Dr. Schmidtová, Bratislava. Two dolphins play in the gable.<br />
Anvil, hammer, and thongs are seen above the broken inscription.<br />
10 One soldier of ala I Canninefatium is named “Contarius,” surely also out of pride about his<br />
weapon: Speidel, Studiey II, 1992, 62ff.; compare names like Ariogaisus: Schönfeld,<br />
Wörterbuch 1965, 28; Reichert, Lexikon II, 1990, 513f.<br />
11 Small blade: Servius, Aeneid 7, 664: ingenscontus cum ferro brevissimo.” The pennon, hard<br />
to see on our photograph (figure 14.2), is very clear on the original. A triangular pennon is<br />
seen also on a lance in scene 65 of the Bayeux tapestry. To signal: Vegetius 3.5.8<br />
(flammulae); Maurice, Strategikon 1.2.19; 1.2.76; cf. 2.14.5; 2.10; 3.5.12; 7.B.16.5;<br />
7.B17.14. Or to keep the weapon from penetrating too deeply? Thus White, Technology<br />
1962, 8—yet Maurice says to take the pennons off for battle, hence some at least were<br />
badges or decorations, for which see Ubl, “Waffen” 1969, 363. Another Pannonian cavalry<br />
lance with a pennon: Schober, Grabsteine 1923, p. 44, no. 91, fig. 38. A seventh-century<br />
Alamannic lance with a flag: Quast, Gültlingen 1993, 43. Pennoned lances, dafar darraður,<br />
are mentioned in the ninth-century Atlakviða (4). Interfere: Keen, Chivalry 1984, 24.<br />
12 Tacitus, Histories 4.15.1.<br />
13 Ala Canninefatium: Alföldy, Hilfstruppen 1968, 14; Lörincz, Hilfstruppen 2001, 17f.<br />
Against the Quadi: Altheim, Niedergang II, 1952, 138; Kiechle, “Taktik” 1964, 104;<br />
Alföldy, Krise 1989, 398. Ammianus 17.12.1f.: “Sarmatas et Quados…quibus… hastae sunt<br />
longiores.”<br />
14 Horse guard: see p. 143. Auxiliary units: see p. 212, note 27.<br />
15 Hošek, Tituli 1984, 57ff., no. 23, sees in the Gerulata horseman a Canninefas and in his lance<br />
a <strong>Germanic</strong> weapon; cf. Ubl, “Waffen” 1969, 356. Bishop and Coulston, Equipment 1993,<br />
109f., take the Gerulata lance for Sarmatian. There is no substance to the claims that the long<br />
lance of Danubian contarii, whether Sarmatian, Canninefatian, or Quadian, is a Parthian<br />
import (contra: Kemkes-Scheuerbrandt, Patrouille 1997, 37), or that the <strong>Germanic</strong> long<br />
lance “was taken over from the steppe-peoples” (Wenskus, “Bewaffnung” 1976, 459).<br />
Tacitus: Annals 1.64.2; 2.14.2. See also p. 100, this volume.<br />
16 Arrian, Tactica 40.4.<br />
17 Arrian, Tactica 43.2. Sarmatian contus-lances: Tacitus, Histories 1.79 (no shields, both<br />
hands), cf. Annals 6.35. Couched: grave stele from Budapest (Schober, Grabsteine 1923, 44,<br />
no. 91), cf. Keen, Chivalry 1984, 24 and figs. 2–3.<br />
18 Speidel, Studies 1992, 64f.; Schleiermacher, Reitergrabsteine 1984, 170. Sarmatian lances<br />
supported by the knee: Valerius Flaccus VI.236: “abies obnixa genu.” Silius, Punica 15.684:<br />
“sustentata genu…pondera conti”; Adamklissi, Metopes 1 and 2; see also gravestones from<br />
Worms and Paris (Schleiermacher, Reitergrabsteine 1984, nos. 49 and 95).<br />
19 See p. 140.<br />
20 Arrian, Tactica 44 (but not 4.7); contra: Altheim, Niedergang I, 1952, 99; also Müller,<br />
Einfluss 1998, 89ff., who, while elsewhere rightly reducing inflated Sarmatian claims, yet<br />
takes Ammianus 17.12.1f. as Sarmatian influence. For pictures of the Sarmatian lance see<br />
e.g. Mielczarek, Cataphracti 1993.
Notes 235<br />
21 Ride off to the right: Arrian, Tactica 36.5. For the Middle Ages see the discs from<br />
Nendingen (Fuchs, Alamannen 1997, 415) and Pliezhausen (figure 17.5), as well as many<br />
Vendel helmet decorations. Böhner, “Eschwege” 1981, 711, overlooks this tendency. If the<br />
attack formation were a wedge, then the left side would likewise need its lances to the left.<br />
Left-handedness an advantage: Dio 72.22.3 (Commodus); Speidel, “Mauri” 1993, 124 (a<br />
spear thrower).<br />
22 Lörincz, Hilfstruppen 2001, 18; Speidel, Riding 1994, 113; Speidel, Studies II, 1992, 65.<br />
Milliaria units being decisive: Birley, Army 1988, 349ff.<br />
23 Slender thrusting lances of this ala: Schleiermacher, Reitergrabsteine 1984, 174f.; van<br />
Rengen, Apamea 1992, plate 23. A bulky one: van Rengen, Apamea 1992, plate 25.<br />
24 Flavius Bonio: CIL III 3679; Schleiermacher, Reitergrabsteine 1984, 253. Ala Tungrorum<br />
Frontoniana: Alföldy, Hilfstruppen 1968, 38ff. Germani: Saddington, “Ala” 2002.<br />
25 Arrian, Tactica 44:<br />
. Scholars sometimes took this passage to refer to Celts rather than<br />
Germani, for, as Greek authors often do, Arrian uses the word “Keltoi” when he refers to<br />
Germani, as in his Ectaxis 2: = “equites cohortis I Germanorum.” Haas,<br />
“Germanen” 1943/44, 76; Paschoud, Zosime I, 1971, 204; Speidel, Riding 1994, 113.<br />
Contra: Kiechle, “Taktik” 1964, 114, ignoring the facts that Arrian himself uses the word<br />
“Keltoi” for the Quadi (Anabasis 1.3.2), and that the inhabitants of Gaul to Arrian are<br />
“Galatai” (Ektaxis 9: ala II Gallorum= ). Besides, these new maneuvers,<br />
previously not trained by Roman cavalry, cannot well be Celtic in the sense of Gaulish, for<br />
the Gauls had long lost their freedom and with it their warlike spirit (Tacitus, Agricola 11.4:<br />
“Gallos quoque in bellis floruisse accepimus; mox segnitia cum otio intravit, amissa virtute<br />
pariter ac libertate”).<br />
26 Tacitus, Histories 1.79.1f.; Ammianus 17.12.2.<br />
27 Arrian, Ectaxis; Plutarch, Otho 12.5; Vegetius 3.23.4. Goldsworthy, Army 1996, 232f.<br />
Adrianople: Ammianus 31.12.17.<br />
28 Ammianus 16.12.24: “Audax et fidus ingenti robore lacertorum…immanis, equo spumante<br />
sublimior, erectus in iaculum formidandae vastitatis.” Fourth- and fifth-century lance blades:<br />
Böhme, Grabfunde 1974, 100–104.<br />
29 The huge lance became a proud weapon even to Roman emperors: Constantius II (337–361)<br />
wielded a beamlike hasta trabalis to show that he was one with his (<strong>Germanic</strong>) horse guard:<br />
Panegyrici Latini 4.29.5, cf. Nixon and Sayler-Rodgers, Praise 1994, 375. Gloating over<br />
those killed “trabalibus telis”: Ammianus 16.12.53.<br />
30 Maurice, Strategikon 11.3.10f.<br />
31 Maurice, Strategikon 3.5.32, cf. 11.3.10. The latter passage repeats the former, it does not,<br />
therefore, speak of swords borne on the shoulder but of lances (contra: Gamillscheg, in<br />
Dennis and Gamillscheg, Strategikon 1981, 369; Dennis, Strategikon 1984, 38 and 119).<br />
Helmet from Vendel grave 1: Beck, Bilddenkmäler 1964, table 2.1. Gamillscheg translates<br />
as “drei Schritte,” which is impossible; Dennis, translates it “at a trot,” but a threebeat<br />
horse gait, not too fast, clearly is a canter.<br />
32 This seems to be Maurice’s verdict, Strategikon 11.3.17ff., when he says they array<br />
themselves for battle evenly and densely but fight recklessly. Maurice’s description of<br />
“blond” peoples as (Strategikon 4.1.17) likewise refers to a time when the two<br />
armies have already closed in upon one another and hand-to-hand fighting has begun.<br />
33 Maurice, Strategikon 11.3.11f.:<br />
,translated by Dennis, Strategikon 1984, 119, as “rapid charges”, by Gamillscheg<br />
in Dennis and Gamillscheg, Strategikon 1981, 369, as “schwungvolle Angriffe.” However,
Notes 236<br />
and later in Maurice always refer to horse; earlier such use: Plutarch, Sulla<br />
19.<br />
34 Horsemen: Werner, “Bewaffnung” 1968, 107f. Alighted: Tacitus, Annals 1.64; 2.14;<br />
Ammianus 16.12.34; Maurice, Strategikon 11.3.7ff.; Battle of Maldon 2; Hollister,<br />
Institutions 1962, 131–140. Carolingians: Last, “Bewaffnung” 1976, 470.<br />
35 Engström (“Chieftains” 1997, 250; 254) instead sees Sassanian or Byzantine horse as the<br />
model for northern cavalry (no reference to Mauritius). But even though some equipment,<br />
such as the mail face guard, may have come from the south, like Roman equipment<br />
(Raddatz, “Bewaffnung” 1976, 425) it did not change essential tactics.<br />
36 Valsgärde grave 7, left side, zone II. Hauck, “Polytheismus” 1994, 233, fig. 17.<br />
37 Egils saga 53. Compare Grettis saga 19.<br />
15<br />
SPEAR-THROWERS<br />
1 Tacitus, Germania 6.1: “Hastas vel ipsorum vocabulo frameas gerunt angusto et brevi ferro,<br />
sed ita acri et ad usum habili, ut eodem telo, prout ratio poscit, vel cominus vel eminus<br />
pugnent. Et eques quidem scuto frameaque contentus est. Pedites et missilia spargunt,<br />
pluraque singuli, atque in immensum vibrant.” Tacitus is fairly accurate: Wenskus,<br />
“Bewaffnung” 1976, 458; Adler, Studien 1993, 234ff.; also Rives, Tadtus 1999, 135ff.<br />
2 Celtic blades, all smooth: Connolly, Greece 1981, 117. There are no Roman barbed blades in<br />
Schleiermacher, Reitergrabsteine 1984, though some Roman pila, designed to render shields<br />
useless, had barbs: von Schnurbein, “Ango” 1974, 425 (for a Celtic equivalent see note 5).<br />
To von Schnurbein’s list of barbed blades from Roman sites, but likely <strong>Germanic</strong>, one might<br />
add one from Lyne fort, Scottish borders, Antonine or later (Museum of Scotland no. FR<br />
281; Proceedings of the Society of Antiquaries Scotland 35, 1900–1901, 154–186); another<br />
of the fourth century from Housesteads is now in Newcastle Museum.<br />
3 V. Schnurbein, “Ango” 1974; Raddatz, “Bewaffnung” 1976, 374f. (the quote in the text); 423;<br />
427; Adler, Studien 1993, 85ff.; Steuer, in Schlüter and Wiegels, Rom 1999, 477; 483.<br />
Drawings of <strong>Germanic</strong> barbed spear blades: von Schnurbein, “Ango” 1974, 427; Adler,<br />
Studien 1993, 89. A good photograph: Fuchs, Alamannen 1997, no. 150.<br />
4 For example, gold coins of Claudius (RIC, 2nd edn 73) and Domitian (RIC 127); and a<br />
dupondius of Domitian (RIC 295). However, since Trajanic coins show barbed Dacian<br />
javelins, there is a danger that later coins meaninglessly imitate the spears of Domitian’s<br />
coins, e.g. Commodus, RIC 1570, and Probus, RIC 222. As for foot, Stilicho’s spear on his<br />
diptych is not barbed (contra: Steuer, in Schlüter and Wiegels, Rom 1999, 483, following<br />
von Schnurbein, “Ango” 1974, 426; also Bishop and Coulston, Equipment 1993, 164)—<br />
good photographs show the blade merely ribbed. Quadi: CIL III 10969=RIU 509 (Brigetio).<br />
5 Geometric mixing bowl from grave F at Tekke-Ambelokipi near Knossos, shown on the front<br />
cover of Buchholz, Kriegswesen 1980. Lusitani: Diodore 5.34.5; compare a nearly all-iron<br />
Celtic blade with barbs: Bruneaux and Lambot, Guerre 1987, fig. 15. Gildas mentions<br />
“uncinata tela” of Picts and Scots.<br />
6 Not honorable: Birkhan, Kelten 1997, 1134. The Old Indian lawbook of Manu<br />
(Mānavadharmashāstra 7.9) forbids kings to slay their foes with concealed, barbed, or<br />
poisonous weapons (Maurer, Pinnacles 1986, 310).<br />
7 Valerius Maximus 2.3.3; Frontinus 4.7.29; Livy 26.4f. Cf. Sallust, Jugurthan War 46.7.<br />
Kromeyer and Veith, Heerwesen 1928, 309; McCall, Cavalry 1992, 42. The Thesaurus<br />
Linguae Latinae s.v. incurvus (1097, 11f.) takes “incurvus” here to mean “hooked.”<br />
8 Tacitus, Germania 6.3: “In universum aestimani plus penes peditem roboris; eoque mixti<br />
proeliantur.” See pp. 157 and 166. Hamberg, “Bewaffnung” 1936, 41f.
Notes 237<br />
9 Raddatz, “Bewaffnung” 1976, 374, with fig. 79.0. Ilkjær, Illerup 1990, 170; 329.<br />
10 Tearing: Agathias 2.5; Saxo 65. Tacitus may have had such blades in mind when he said that<br />
the iron of the framea was sharp and handy for face-to-face fighting: sharp (acer), it seems,<br />
for cutting, and handy (ad usum habilis) for ripping. By contrast, Much, Germania 1967,<br />
136, is somewhat at a loss to explain why Tacitus refers to the iron of the framea, and<br />
translators tend to go astray here.<br />
11 Speidel, Denkmäler 1994, p. 9 and no. 83; cf. ibid. no. 355a.<br />
12 A horse guard’s shield on another gravestone also shows a barbed spear: Speidel, Denkmäler<br />
1994, 355a, with nearly the same shield ornament. Unwonted detail on the gravestone of an<br />
armorum custos: CIL V, 5196=Franzoni, Habitus 1987, no. 56. The owner of the gravestone<br />
is a Thracian, but Batavian custom prevailed among the horse guard: from the first to the<br />
third century they had the unofficial name Batavi, many were Batavians, and their style of<br />
gravestones came from Lower Germany.<br />
13 Swimming rivers: Speidel, “Lebensbeschreibungen” 2004.<br />
14 Tacitus, Annals 11.16: “Armis equisque in patrium nostrumque morem exercitus” (surely<br />
with the horse guard: Speidel, Riding 1994, 26). Native <strong>Germanic</strong> weapons of Roman troops<br />
in the fourth and fifth centuries are typified by Stilicho’s weapons: von Schnurbein, “Ango”<br />
1974, 426 (but see note 4, this chapter).<br />
15 RIC VII, Ticinum, p. 63. Further guards with barbed spears: Aurelianus’ Protector CIL III,<br />
327=Dessau, Inscriptiones 1892, 2775=TAM IV. 137, cf. Speidel, “Decorations” II, 1997,<br />
233; also a cut class beaker in Köln: Waurick, Gallien 1980, 113.<br />
16 Elagabalus: RIC 57; BMC 195. Lanceola: Historia Augusta, Maximinus 30.2 (Lippold,<br />
Kommentar 1991, 365, suggests lanceae were not widely used in the Roman army before the<br />
end of the third century, but see Balty, “Apamea” 1988; Tomlin, “Manuscripts” 1998);<br />
Anonymus Valesianus 78 on Anastasios in AD 518, “In trinitatem lanceolam non mittis!”<br />
For Anastasios using the barbed throwing spear see Kolias, Waffen 1988, 189. Lanceola as<br />
the Latin name of the <strong>Germanic</strong> weapon: Historia Augusta, Claudius 8.5 with Much,<br />
Germania 1967, 139.<br />
17 Look like them: Tacitus, Histories 2.20 (Caecina); Herodian 4.7.3 (Caracalla); Panegyrici<br />
Latini 8.16.4 (Allectus); Epitome de Caesaribus 47.6 (Gratian). Speidel, “Decorations” II,<br />
1997, 231. <strong>Germanic</strong> kings too wished to look like their followers: see p. 185. Share fame:<br />
Tacitus, Germania 14.1; Speidel, Riding 1994, 39f. Disconcertingly, though, Constantine’s<br />
barbed spear on the nine-solidi Arras hoard medallion (RIC 801) is taller than the emperor<br />
himself and rather thick, more like a hasta trabalis, perhaps to make him look strong. See p.<br />
138.<br />
18 Von Schnurbein, “Ango” 1974; Weski, Waffen 1982, 190; Capelle, Archäologie 1990, 66;<br />
Adler, Studien 1993, 246. Portonaccio sarcophagus (Figure 17.4). Arrian, Tactica 4.6 (end).<br />
Adler, Studien 1993, 186ff.<br />
19 Ilkjær, Illerup 1990, 259.<br />
20 Summers, Culture 1999, 97ff.; Adler, Studien 1993, 91. Twin-spears of the Geometric period<br />
in Greece: Höckmann, “Lanze” 1980, 302; Odyssey 1.256; Drews, End 1993, 192. Illyrians:<br />
Belt from Vace=fig. 14 in Mallory, Search 1989. Slavs: Maurice, Strategikon 11.4.44.<br />
<strong>Germanic</strong> guards of the Byzantine emperors also had pila and lanceae (Corippus, Iust.<br />
3237–3245).<br />
21 Alamanni, Franks, Saxons: Böhme, Grabfunde 1974, 111. Bavarians: the Inzing barbed<br />
javelin blade (sixth-seventh century) in the Charlottenburg Museum für Ur-und<br />
Frühgeschichte. High-ranking warriors: Steuer, in Schlüter and Wiegels, Rom 1999, 483.<br />
22 Two unusual late-Roman gravestones from Aquileia show legionaries with barbed spears:<br />
CIL V, 900 and 944=Franzoni, Habitus 1987, nos. 13 and 14. Scandinavia: Schulze-<br />
Dörrlamm, “Kriegergräber” 1985, 549, with fig. 34. Vendel helmet foils: Hauck,<br />
“Polytheismus” 1994, 224; grave 54 at Simris, Skona (Raddatz, “Bewaffnung” 1976, figs. 93<br />
and 94); Adler, Studien 1993, 91; Hauck, “Wiedergabe” 1981, 234. The Torslunda die
Notes 238<br />
(figure 1.6) shows one of Woden’s spears much thinner than the other, very likely to set it<br />
off as a throwing spear.<br />
23 Iordanes, Getica 261; Battle of Maldon 134–137.<br />
24 On foot: IK 6 (Års); IK 20 (Beresina); IK 39 (Denmark); IK 51.1 (Fakse); IK 51.3 (Gudme);<br />
IK 66 (Gummerup); IK 65 (Skovsborg). On horseback: IK 65b (Gudbrandsdalen); IK 92<br />
(Kitnæs; Hauck, “Polytheismus” 1994, 273); IK 98 (køje); IK 151 (Skona); IK 163<br />
(Skonager); IK 193 Rv (Tunalund). Balder’s spear as he rides to Hel is also barbed: IK 14<br />
(Aneby); IK 86 Rv (Inderøy). Woden’s weapon: Hauck, “Polytheismus” 1994, 243ff.; 270ff.<br />
Raddatz, “Bewaffnung” 1976, 430: “Es hat offenkundig keine spezielle Reiterbewaffnung<br />
gegeben.”<br />
25 Beck, “Bewaffnung” 1976, 482. Reichert, Lexikon I, 1987, 68; 216; 301ff.; 309; Reichert,<br />
Lexikon II, 1990, 513f.<br />
26 Raddatz, “Bewaffnung” 1976, 427; cf. Kolias, Waffen 1988, 189. Engström, “Chieftains”<br />
1997, takes the strap for a carrying handle only, but Saxo 26.41: “Haec vociferantem<br />
Hadingus hasta traicit amentata,” proves beyond cavil that it was a throwing strap; likewise<br />
Atlamál in Grœnlenzko 42.<br />
27 Strap: IK 92 (Kitnæs); Raddatz, “Bewaffnung” 1976, 427; Kolias, Waffen 1988, 189.<br />
Philistines: Drews, End 1993, 185. Perhaps the Roman pilum was thrown thus: gravestone of<br />
Flavoleius Cordus, Mainz (Boppert, Grabdenkmäler 1992, 92); cf. Isidore, Origines 18.7.5:<br />
“Lancea est hasta amentum habens in medio.” Saxo 26.<br />
28 Hervarar saga (“Hunnenschlachtlied” 28.4): “óc láti svá Óðinn fleinn fliúga.”<br />
29 Thrown or hand-to-hand: Agathias 2.5; von Schnurbein, “Ango” 1974; Fuchs, Alamannen<br />
1997, 237ff. Compare the nearly all-iron Celtic spear from northern Italy (Bruneaux and<br />
Lambot, Guerre 1987, fig. 15); also a Mycenaean spear with bronze-covered shaft<br />
(Höckmann, “Lanze” 1980). The kesja spears or byrnie piercers ( ) of Egil and<br />
Thorolf in Egils saga 53 are also a kind of ango to judge by the square cross-section of the<br />
blade.<br />
30 Engströmm, “Chieftains” 1997.<br />
31 Raddatz, “Bewaffnung” 1976, 374.<br />
32 For its latest occurrences in the Middle Ages, see von Schnurbein, “Ango” 1974, 421.<br />
16<br />
WHEELING RIGHT<br />
1 Fighting on horseback: Birkhan, “Germanen” 1970, 398f. Illyrians: belt from Vace (fig. 13 in<br />
Mallory, Search 1989). Romans: Josephus, Jewish War 3.96; Arrian, Tactica 41f. Celts:<br />
Strabo 4.4.3; Birkhan, Kelten 1997, 1133f.<br />
2 Cavalry attacks: Arrian, Tactica 4. Goldsworthy, Army 1996, 228; Morillo, Warfare 1994,<br />
154ff. Germani: Caesar, Gallic War 7.80.6; Arrian, Tactica 44.1; Ammianus 16.12.36;<br />
31.12.17; Procopius, Gothic War 4.32. Early Byzantine horse followed the rule Tacitus<br />
reports for <strong>Germanic</strong> horsemen (Germania 30.3): that it is fine to give ground, so long as one<br />
returns to the fight (Maurice, Strategikon 3.11.15).<br />
3 Tacitus, Germania 6.1, a fact confirmed by finds in graves. Cf. Arrian, Tactica 4.6. Spears<br />
were preferred as the first weapon to be used (Ammianus 31.13–5), but a horseman could<br />
also use his sword while still holding spears: Speidel, Studies I 1984, 173ff.=Schleiermacher,<br />
Reitergrabsteine 1984, 220f.<br />
4 Arrian, Tactica 4.6: . Latin<br />
“hasta” and “lancea”, even “contus” are very wide concepts, more overlapping with English<br />
“spear” than with “lance” (“contus” for throwing: Strabo 10.448; Arrian, Ektaxis 16f.; 26).
Notes 239<br />
Adler, Studien 1993, uses modern German “Speer” for barbed spears only—against German<br />
and English usage.<br />
5 Tacitus, Annals 2.11.<br />
6 Tacitus, Germania 6.2: “Sed nec variare gyros in morem nostrum docentur. In rectum aut uno<br />
flexu dextros agunt, ita coniuncto orbe, ut nemo posterior sit.” Speidel, “Cavalry Training”<br />
1996.<br />
7 For a review of the literature on Tacitus’ passage see Lund, “Germania” 1991, 2050ff. Lund,<br />
Probleme 1989, 269ff., “solves” the non-existent problem by laying violent hands on<br />
Tacitus’ text, changing it from aut to et. Even such outstanding studies as Adler, Studien<br />
1993, 250, and Wolters, “Kampf” 2000, 209, see here only one instead of two different<br />
attack maneuvers.<br />
8 Tacitus, Histories 3.2.4: “alae perrupere hostem.” Annals 14.37: “eques protentis hastis<br />
perfringit quod obvium et validum erat.” If the charge miscarried, they would ride off to the<br />
right, as Romans might do (Arrian, Tactica 36.5).<br />
9 Spears: Adler, Studien 1993, 259f. Lammert, Taktik 1931, 52, is wrong to take Tacitus’ abovementioned<br />
words “eques quidem scuto, frameaque contentus est” to mean a horseman had<br />
only one spear. Attack: cf. Tacitus, Annals 6.35 (on Sarmatians and Hiberi): “Modo equestris<br />
proelii more frontis et tergi vices, aliquando ut conserta acies corporibus et pulsu armorum<br />
pellerent, pellerentur.”<br />
10 Arrian, Tactica 38.5: ; cf. ibid. 4.6. Lammert, Taktik 1931, 56.<br />
11 Arrian, Tactica 4.6.<br />
12 Helpers: Caesar, Gallic War 1.48; 8.13; Livy 44.26; Tacitus, Germania 6.3. See the<br />
illustration of CIL III 3677=10609 in Speidel, “Mauri” 1993, fig. 4.<br />
13 Arrian, Tactica 37.2–5; 44.1: .<br />
14 Totila in AD 552 even changed circles: Procopios, Gothic War 4.31.19.<br />
15 Herodian 8.1.3; Maurice, Strategikon 11.3.11fF.<br />
16 Lucanus, Pharsalia 1.423: “Optima gens flexis in gyrum Sequana frenis.”<br />
17 Arrian, Tactica 36.1.<br />
18 Caesar, Gallic War 4.12.1; Strabo 4.4.2; Plutarch, Otho 12; Tacitus, Germania 32; Dio<br />
55.24.6f.; Herodian 8.1.3; Aurelius Victor 21.2 (see note 22); Dexippos, FGH 100, f. 6.4:<br />
. Prokopios, Gothic War 4.32.18ff.;<br />
Maurice, Strategikon 11.3.7. Gundel, Untersuchungen 1937, 38; Springer, “Kriegswesen”<br />
2001, 339. Thompson, Early Germans 1965, 116ff., grudging that “German cavalry was<br />
somewhat less ineffective than German infantry,” makes one wonder about the Roman army<br />
they conquered. Authority: Contamine, War 1984, 180; likewise Jankuhn, “Bewaffnung”<br />
1976, 457.<br />
19 Caesar, Gallic War 1.39: “incredibili virtute atque exercitatione in armis.”<br />
20 Velleius Paterculus 2.109; Speidel, Riding 1994, 20.<br />
21 Tencteri: Tacitus, Germania 32. Feigned flight: Plutarch, Marius 26.1f.; Arrian, Tactica<br />
44.1: … ; Ammianus 17.12.3. Feigned flight was still known to<br />
Norman cavalry in the eleventh century: Morillo, Warfare 1994, 148. Cf. Altheim,<br />
Niedergang I, 1952, 73f.; Smail, Warfare 1956, 78.<br />
22 Aurelius Victor, Caesares 21.2: “Alamannos, gentem populosam ex equo mirifice<br />
pugnantem.”<br />
23 Tacitus, Germania 6.1. Strabo 4.4.3 says the same of Celtic warriors, a “topos” based on<br />
truth. Cf. Diodore 5.34.5.<br />
24 Adler, Studien 1993, 240, rightly remarking that Caesar easily integrated <strong>Germanic</strong> horse<br />
into his cavalry; on 244 he considers Arrian’s horsemen hurling 15–20 spears (Tactica 42),<br />
but that belongs rather to the show-side than to the war-side of the maneuver.<br />
25 Wheeler, “Firepower” 2001.
Notes 240<br />
26 Weapons: Adler, Studien 1993, 259f. Literary sources: Herodian 8.1.3; Dexippos, FGH 100,<br />
frag. 6.4; 7.2.<br />
27 Herodian 7.2.1; 7.8.10; 8.1.3.<br />
28 Speidel, Studies I, 1984 139; cf. Dexippos, FGH 100, frag. 6.4. Vandals: Altheim,<br />
Niedergang I, 1952, 120.<br />
29 Schumacher and Klumbach, Germanendarstellungen 1935, nos. 115; 116; 124.<br />
30 A campestre: Alföldi, Reiteradel 1952, 36ff.<br />
31 For example, Tacitus, Histories 1.79.3f.; Libanius, Oratio 59.110; Vegetius 3.23.3.<br />
32 Caesar, Gallic War 4.2.3; 4.12.2; Tacitus, Annals 1.64; 2.14; Ammianus 16.12.34: “statim<br />
desiluit et secuti eum residui idem fecere”; Maurice, Strategikon 11.3.7ff.; cf. Julian, Oratio<br />
2.60; 1.36.D.<br />
33 While we do not know the battle cry in German, the one in Sarmatian is known to have been<br />
Marha, Marha, “Death, Death!” (Ammianus 19.11.6). Valerius Flaccus, Argonautica 6.232.<br />
Syme, “Argonautica” 1929, 133; Seyfarth, Ammianus Marcellinus II, 1975, 73, note 112.<br />
34 Arrian, Tactica 44.1. Horse guard: Speidel, Riding 1994, 113 (though the Gerulata<br />
gravestone and horse-guard recruitment show that these “Kelts” are Roman Germani, not<br />
Quadi from beyond the frontier); see p. 257, note 25.<br />
35 Fight well: Maurice, Strategikon 11.3.7; scorn orderliness: ibid. 11.3.22f.,<br />
17<br />
HORSE-STABBERS<br />
1 Drews, End 1993, 141ff.; 175.<br />
2 Pauli, Kelten 1980, 208; Cunliffe, Celts 1997, 70f.<br />
3 Diodore 5.29–1. See also Strabo 3.4.18 on Celtiberians and Arrian, Anabasis 1.6.5 on<br />
Macedonians,<br />
4 Florence, Museo Archeologico; Kemkes and Scheuerbrand, Patrouille 1997, p. 83, fig. 91.<br />
5 Alföldi, Reiteradel 1952, plate 4.<br />
6 Roman horsemen: equiline painting (Alföldi, Reiteradel 1952; McCall, Cavalry 1992, 46).<br />
7 Polybius 6.25.4; McCall, Cavalry 1992, 51f.; 69; 73ff.<br />
8 Thucydides 7.30.2; cf. Xenophon, Anabasis 1.10.7. Collection of the American Numismatic<br />
Society 1040; Antike Münzen Nord-Griechenlands III 2.201f.; Gaebler, “Münzkunde” 1927,<br />
237–242, with several variant images (fig. XI.20: curved sword).<br />
9 Livy 42.59.2f.: Italicos equites incurrerunt ut usu belli et ingenio impauida gens turbaretur; tre<br />
[…] is hastas petere pedites […] equorumque nunc succidere crura […] is, nunc ilia<br />
suffodere.” To hack off legs, straight spears will not do, spears with curved blades or swords<br />
are needed. Thracian javelins and short swords: Herodotus 7.75.<br />
10 Ryberg, Panel Reliefs 1967, 12 and fig. 4b.<br />
11 Caesar, Gallic War 4.12–15. The horses, meanwhile, stayed in place: Caesar, Gallic War 4.2<br />
(wrongly declared impossible by Walser, Caesar 1956, 63). Usipi and Tencteri: Schmidt,<br />
Westgermanen 1970, 409–419<br />
12 Gauls still knew mixed foot and horse tactics, though: Caesar, Gallic War 7.18.1: “cum<br />
equitatu expeditisque qui inter equites proeliari consuessent”; 80.3–7: “Galli inter equites<br />
raros sagittarios expeditesque levis armaturae interiecerant qui suis cedentibus auxilio<br />
succurrerent et nostrorum equitum inpetus sustinerent.”<br />
13 Caesar, African War 40: “qui ex Curionis proelio capti conservatique parem gratiam in fide<br />
pariter tuenda praestare voluerunt.” Cf. Speidel, Riding 1994, 155f., with note 205; Speidel,<br />
“Garde” 1995. Sagas: Heimskringla, Óláfs saga Tryggvasonar 41; Njals saga 153; 157.<br />
.
Notes 241<br />
14 Assuming they came with the elder Crassus; but they could also have come with the younger<br />
Crassus in winter 54/53 BC (Plutarch, Crassus 17.7).<br />
15 Plutarch, Crassus 25.2: Greek terms for Gauls and Germani: Haas, “Germanen”<br />
1943/44, 76; Paschoud, Zosime 1971–1989, I, 204; III/2, 152.<br />
16 Plutarch, Crassus 25; the scene is paralleled by Heliodore, Aethiopica 9.14ff., see p. 160, this<br />
volume.<br />
17 Compare the “Galli Germanique” in Egypt in 55 BC: Caesar, Civil War 3.4.3; 3.4.4 and<br />
Caesar’s Gauls and Germani in 48 BC in the East: Alexandrian War 17; 29f.; Speidel, Riding<br />
1994, 13.<br />
18 Civil War 3.52.2; cf. 1.83.<br />
19 Caesar, Civil War 3.89.4; 3.93.5. Plutarch, Pompey 69.2; Caesar 44.2; Frontinus 2.3.22;<br />
Appian, Civil Wars 2.76. If auxiliary cohorts 500 strong, rather than legionary ones at 275–<br />
300 were meant, then six of them were indeed 3,000 strong as the sources say. Contra:<br />
Kraner et al., Commentarii 1968, 272f. Most daring: Appian, Civil Wars 2.76,<br />
. For the battle see Paschoud, “Mouvement” 1995.<br />
20 Florus, Epitoma 2.13.48: “Germanorum cohortes tantum in effusos equites fecere impetum<br />
ut illi esse pedites, hi venire in equis viderentur.”<br />
21 Mommsen, Geschichte 3, 1882, 427; Kraner et al., Commentarii 1968, 272f.<br />
22 Vegetius 3.14.8–11.<br />
23 Caesar, Gallic War 1.48.5. See p. 8, this volume.<br />
24 See Tacitus Agricola 36.2 and Annals 2.21.1.<br />
25 Vercingetorix: Caesar, Gallic War 7.67.<br />
26 Tacitus, Annals 1.65: “Arminius…cum delectis scindit agmen equisque maxime vulnera<br />
ingerit. Illi sanguine suo et lubrico paludum lapsantes excussis rectoribus disicere obvios,<br />
proterere iacentes…Caecina…suffosso equo.”<br />
27 See pp. 160; 166. Compare Arrian, Anabasis 1.16 (battle at the Granicus river); Caesar, Civil<br />
War 3.84.3f.<br />
28 For example, the gravestone of Bassus, Köln, Römisch-Germanisches Museum. CIL XIII,<br />
8308; Gabelmann, “Grabmonumente” 1973, 172 (about AD 96); Schleiermacher,<br />
Reitergrabsteine 1984, 17. The origin of this scene on Mainz grave-stones: Gabelmann,<br />
“Grabmonumente” 161f.<br />
29 CIL XIII, 7029; Schleiermacher, Reitergrabsteine 1984, 26; Boppert, Grabdenkmäler 1992,<br />
no. 31.<br />
30 Boppert, Grabdenkmäler 1992, no. 31, p. 135; my observation to the contrary comes from a<br />
study of the original in Mainz. Klein-Pfeuffer, Fibeln 1993, 174, takes the gesture to be<br />
reaching for the bridle.<br />
31 Gravestones: CIL XIII 7052; Schleiermacher, Reitergrabsteine 1984, 27; Boppert,<br />
Grabdenkmäler 1992, no. 33. Unlike more recent authors, Schumacher and Klumbach,<br />
Germanendarstellungen 1935, 59, recognized Romanius’ use of a coat to guard his arm.<br />
Literary sources: Caesar, Civil War 1.75: “sinistras sagis involvunt, gladiosque destringent,<br />
ita se a caetratis equitibusque defendunt.” Tacitus, Histories 5.22.2: “pauci ornatu militari,<br />
plerique circum bracchia torta veste et strictis mucronibus”; cf. Petronius, Satyricon 63.<br />
32 Procopius, Persian War 2.25; Paul the Deacon 1.20; Jordanes, Getica 23. The coat around<br />
the arm would leave them with only their genitals covered, just as Paul the Deacon says, cf.<br />
Widengren, Feudalismus 1969, 50.<br />
33 For Dexileos’ foe being naked to show his helplessness, see Ridgway, Styles 1997, 7, and, in<br />
a more general way, Himmelmann, Nacktheit 1990, 38; 40f.<br />
34 Greek models: Mackintosh, “Horseman” 1986. Roman art typically began with traditional<br />
models, then added realistic touches: Schumacher and Klumbach, Germanendarstellungen<br />
1935, 59ff.; Speidel, Denkmäler 1994, 5f.
Notes 242<br />
35 Gravestone of Dexileos, Athens, 394 BC. Josephus, Jewish War 3.488; 490; Panegyrici<br />
Latini 4.29.5; Zosimus 1.50.4; Speidel, Riding 1994, 108.<br />
36 Similar gravestones from the Rhine frontier: Reburrus; Bassus; Andes; Annauso; Cantaber;<br />
Freioverus; Anonymi; Dolanus; Ingenuus; Leubius; Licinus; Anonymus: Schleiermacher,<br />
Reitergrabsteine 1984, 6; 17; 20; 21; 22; 24; 31; 32; 38; 42; 45; 46; 47. Troops from Roman<br />
Germany brought the motif to Britain, where it seems to have lived on meaningfully:<br />
Schleiermacher, Reitergrabsteine 1984, 69; 72–83; perhaps the British continued the earlier<br />
Celtic fighting style. In Mauretania and Numidia, on the other hand, the barbarians<br />
underhoof are mainly stuff for victory (Schleiermacher, Reitergrabsteine 1984, nos. 55; 56;<br />
57; 59; 61; 62; see also 95 and 101).<br />
37 Tacitus, Germania 6.3: “centeni.”<br />
38 H. Mattingly, BMC II, page L and no. 622, and the slightly later no. 643, plate 25.2. BMC II,<br />
plate 26.3 (Vespasian) is illustrated in Scott-Ryberg, Panel Reliefs 1967, fig. 4a. Scott-<br />
Ryberg, Panel Reliefs 12, mistakes Vespasian’s coin as referring to the Jewish War. Firstcentury<br />
four- and six-cornered shields <strong>Germanic</strong>: Schumacher and Klumbach,<br />
Germanendarstellungen 1935, 58; Raddatz, “Bewaffnung” 1976, 425.<br />
39 Scott-Ryberg, Panel Reliefs 1967, 12, traces the type.<br />
40 Sestertius of Domitian, RIC 284. Domitian has the warrior rear up rather more: BMC II, no.<br />
339, plate 73.2. Fame at home: Caesar, Gallic War 1.48; cf. Tacitus, Germania 6: “honor<br />
est.” Andes’ foe wears the Chatti hairdo of proven warriors. Wenskus, “Adel” 1973, 64.<br />
41 From p. 158.<br />
42 Hamberg, Studies 1945, 176–179; Andreae, “Portonaccio” 1969.<br />
43 Cf. Patraos’ coin, note 8 above (I own such a coin with a reverse of good quality that shows<br />
the spear well and also the decorated boots of the warrior on the ground). <strong>Germanic</strong> short<br />
spears, 1 meter long, for close-up fighting have been found: Raddatz, “Bewaffnung” 1976,<br />
427. For dropping on one’s knee, see p. 158, this volume.<br />
44 Tacitus, Germania 6.3.<br />
45 Contra: Steuer, “Kriegswesen” 2001, 364.<br />
46 Heliodore, Aethiopica 9–18. On the thighs the armor ends.<br />
47 For other third-century traits see Altheim, Literatur 1948, 108ff.<br />
48 Tribal troops of Gordian III fighting in the East in 244: Res Gestae Divi Saporis 7; Speidel<br />
Studies I, 1984, 713f. Altheim, Literatur 1948, 112, rightly saw Heliodore’s “Blemmyes”<br />
sword fighters doing something different to what Aurelianus’ club-men did at Hemesa in AD<br />
272. For club-wielders at Hemesa in AD 272, see p. 94f.<br />
49 Ammianus 16.12.22: “Norant enim licet prudentem ex equo bellatorem cum clibanario<br />
nostro congressum frena retinentem et scutum, hastam una manu vibrante tegminibus ferreis<br />
abscondito bellatori nocere non posse. Peditem vero inter ipsos discriminum vertices cum<br />
nihil caveri solet praeter id quod occurrit, humiliter occulte reptantem latere forato iumenti<br />
incautum rectorem praecipitem agere levi negotio trucidandum.”<br />
50 Horses: Panegyrici Latini 4.23: “crurum tenus.” Claudian, In Rufinum 2.361: “par vestitus<br />
equis.” Riders: see the Dura-Europos graffitto, e.g. Gamber, “Waffen” 1964, fig. 22.<br />
Clibanarii: Speidel, Studies II 1992, 406–413.<br />
51 Ammianus 16.12.21f. and 16.12.38, though he is not explicit about their deed.<br />
52 Libanius Oratio 18.265.<br />
53 Nikephoros II Phokas, Praecepta Militaria I.125ff. (Geer, Sowing 1994, 19; 270).<br />
54 On Coptic weavings, too, military saints ride serenely over kneeling or running men that stab<br />
their horses with spears from below: silk sleeve from Achmim, now in the Victoria and<br />
Albert Museum, London. Böhner, “Eschwege” 1991, p. 708 and plate 66.<br />
55 Hauck, “Adelskultur” 1957(Zeitschrift für Württembergische Landesgeschichte; for<br />
corrections see Böhner, “Eschwege” 1991, 710); Beck, Bilddenkmäler 1964, 40ff.; Hauck,<br />
“Polytheismus” 1994, 224ff.; Böhner and Quast, “Grabfunde” 1994 (with reasons for the<br />
date); Fuchs, Alamannen 1997, 282; 436.
Notes 243<br />
56 The lance is long and thick, even more so than in the corresponding Swedish pictures, yet<br />
winged lances could serve for throwing, as seen e.g. in the Stuttgarter Psalter (Last,<br />
“Bewaffnung” 1976, 468, fig. 102). On lances thrown see also Beck, Bilddenkmäler 1964,<br />
34, and p. 138, this volume. On the other hand, the foil of the helmet from Valsgarde grave 7<br />
shows an enemy stabbed (Hauck, “Polytheismus” 1994, 233, fig. 17).<br />
57 Discovered by Hauck, “Adelskultur” 1957, 6; confirmed by Böhner, “Eschwege” 1991, 708.<br />
58 Böhner, “Eschwege” 1991, 708.<br />
59 Davidson, Sword 1962, 190; Beck, Bilddenkmäler 1964, 23f.; Böhner, “Eschwege” 1991,<br />
709; 714: “Reiterheilige” (even Coptic); Hauck, “Polytheismus” 1994, 232:<br />
“Formenrepertoire der imperialen Münzprägung und Triumphalkunst”; 241: “In prinzipieller<br />
Abhängigkeit von den Konventionen der imperialen Münzpropaganda und Triumphalkunst.”<br />
60 Klein-Pfeuffer, Fibeln 1993, 174. Mainz was the center for reliefs with foes beneath<br />
horsemen: Gabelmann, “Grabmonumente” 1973, 161f. Contra Quast,<br />
“Kriegerdarstellungen” 2002, 271: “Bestenfalls noch als ‘Ruinen’ wahrgenommen …sehr<br />
unwahrscheinlich.”<br />
61 Lions: Schleiermacher, Reitergrabsteine 1984, 17; 29; 42; 43; 45; 76; 79. Böhner,<br />
“Eschwege” 1991, 709, takes the lions for “Mediterranean.” Beck, Bilddenkmäler 1964, 40,<br />
sees their jumping towards one another as a “<strong>Germanic</strong> version.” It is hard to see how<br />
Böhner and Quast, “Grabfunde” 1994, 389 and 394, find a Christian Arbor Vitae between<br />
the two lions. For the small figure on the horse see also CIL III, 4061=Schleiermacher,<br />
Reitergrabsteine 1984, 107 (Pettau, but in the Mainz tradition: Gabelmann,<br />
“Grabmonumente” 1973, 161); cf. Speidel, Denkmäler 1994, 535 (Rome). Helper: Klein-<br />
Pfeuffer, Fibeln 1993, 174f. Even the horse-stabber’s crossed legs as seen on the<br />
Pliezhausen, Sutton Hoo, and Valsgarde foils are somehow prefigured by the horse-stabber’s<br />
half-crossed legs on Dolanus’ gravestone that almost look like the medieval stabber’s<br />
attempt to make the horse stumble.<br />
62 See the corresponding foil on the helmet from grave 8 at Valsgarde: Hauck, “Polytheismus”<br />
1994, p. 233, fig. 17.<br />
63 Sutton Hoo: Bruce-Mitford, Sutton Hoo 1978, 190ff.<br />
64 Arwidsson, Valsgarde 1977, 121, saw the connection between the gravestones and the<br />
Swedish scenes but missed the Pliezhausen foil.<br />
65 Valsgarde 7, II, right-hand side; Hauck, “Wiedergabe” 1981, 231ff.; Hauck, “Polytheismus”<br />
1994, fig. 17, p. 233.<br />
66 CIL XIII, 6233=Schleiermacher, Reitergrabsteine 1984, no. 45; Boppert, Steindenkmäler<br />
1998, no. 49.<br />
67 Arwidsson, Valsgärde 1977, Abb. 128; Bruce-Mitford, Sutton Hoo 1978, 217, fig. 164a.<br />
68 Valsgarde, grave 8, cf. Hauck, “Bilddenkmäler” 1976, 592, Abb. 116. Rhenish bridle holder:<br />
gravestone of T.Statilius Taurus from Mainz: Boppert, Grabdenkmäler 1992, no. 37. Groom:<br />
Boppert, Grabdenkmäler 1992, no. 37, cf. Schleiermacher, Reitergrabsteine 1984, nos. 90;<br />
93. Klein-Pfeuffer, Fibeln 1993, 174, mistakes the sword blow as reaching for the bridle,<br />
thereby robbing herself of the best proof for the origin of the Pliezhausen image from the<br />
Mainz gravestones.<br />
69 Coins: Beck, Bilddenkmäler 1964, 24f. Correct: Klein-Pfeuffer, Fibeln 1993, 174.<br />
70 Contra Böhner, “Eschwege” 1991, 714; “barbarische Umdeutungen christlicher Vorbilder,”<br />
ibid. 716. The bridle-holder, then, comes not from the Roman image of Victoria, pace Beck,<br />
Bilddenkmäler 1964, 33.<br />
71 See p. 27.<br />
72 Perhaps the gold foil itself at first graced a helmet, for once larger, it was later cut to fit the<br />
round border: Böhner, “Eschwege” 1991, 710. The foils of known Swedish and English<br />
Vendel helmets are of bronze, but <strong>Germanic</strong> kings, if they could, wore golden helmets: see<br />
p. 188.
Notes 244<br />
73 Hauck, “Adelskultur” 1957; Böhner, “Eschwege” 1991, 707ff.; 710; Böhner and Quast,<br />
“Grabfunde” 1994, 390: “Sonst unverständlich.”<br />
74 Arwidsson, Valsgärde 1977, figs. 25; 26; cf. Böhner, “Eschwege” 1991, 712f. Also Vendel,<br />
grave 1, as illustrated in Böhner, “Eschwege” 1991, 715.<br />
75 The diameter of the Pliezhausen disc is 6.9 cm, while none of the phalerae quoted by Böhner,<br />
“Eschwege” 1991, 710, are less than 8.7 cm. Size as argument: Hauck, “Adelskultur” 1957,<br />
6; Böhner, “Eschwege” 1991, 710.<br />
76 The Obrigheim foil (Figure 1.5) too may have served as a helmet decoration (see p. 31).<br />
Remarkably, the Sutton Hoo helmet is closer to Pliezhausen than to Vendel or Valsgärde 7<br />
and 8, for rider and helper, as noted by Hauck, “Wiedergabe” 1981, 255, wear no helmets.<br />
Cultural exchanges between Alamannia and Sweden: Böhner, “Eschwege” 1991, 703; 716;<br />
722ff.; in the field of personal names: Beck, “Stanzen” 1968, 238.<br />
77 “Reichsideologie” (Steuer, “Ringschwert” 1987) is too strong a concept, though, for sixthcentury<br />
Alamannia. “Religiös-kultische Ideologie” (Steuer, “Ringschwert” 1999, 334) seems<br />
better, or “Ausdruck einer eigenen Identität” (Quast, “Kriegerdarstellunger” 2002, 276).<br />
Runes: Stocklund, “Runes” 2003, 178. Woden: Hauck, “Uppakra” 2002. Contacts in Roman<br />
times already: Lund-Hansen, Himlingøje 1995, 416.<br />
78 Beck, Bilddenkmäler 1964, 44f. “Wyrd”: Beowulf 455; 477; 734; 1205; 2420; 2526; 2574;<br />
2814.<br />
79 Beck, Bilddenkmäler 1964, 40.<br />
80 A single dragon may have perched on the Pliezhausen dancer’s head (as on the Års<br />
medallion and the Vindonissa foil), but the traces are too faint to be certain. Dioscuri: Hauck,<br />
“Polytheism” 1994, 236. Virtus, egg on: see p. 120. Contra: Hauck, “Polytheismus” 1994,<br />
237; 240: “Rettung aus Kampfnot.” Steuer, “Ringschwert” 1999, 334: “Sieghelfer.”<br />
81 Snorri Sturluson, Heimskringla, Ynglinga saga 9.<br />
82 The horse-stabber’s aristocratic cloak and his not being hurt also speak against his fighting<br />
“dirty,” contra Beck, Bilddenkmäler 1964, 40. If Ammianus 16.12.22 implies a judgement, it<br />
is that of an enemy.<br />
83 “Nicht getreten”: Beck, Bilddenkmäler 1964, 39; “unversehrt”: Klein-Pfeuffer, Fibeln 1993,<br />
174. Contra: Böhner and Quast, “Grabfunde” 1994, 389: “sterbend.”<br />
84 There is no substance to the claim that he is “überwunden,” contra Böhner and Quast,<br />
“Grabfunde” 1994, 389.<br />
85 Contra: Arwidsson, Valsgärde 1977, 121, who sees in the horsemen Roman “legionaries”<br />
hired in free Germany. Of our three examples, Andes (Figure 18.1) comes from Dalmatia,<br />
Romanius (Figure 17.1) from Noricum, Dolanus (Figure 17.2) from Thrace—in this they are<br />
typical.<br />
86 Herodotus 5.111f.; Plutarch, Crassus 25; Heliodore, Aethiopica 9.14ff.; Zosimus 1.52f.;<br />
Panegyrici Latini 4.23f.; Libanius, Oratio 59.110 (Förster 263, 19ff.); Libanius, Oratio<br />
18.265.<br />
87 Sixth-century lancer attacks: see p. 140.<br />
88 Konungs Skuggsjá p. 156, after Beck, Bilddenkmäler 1964, 38f. Compare the Merovingian<br />
gleven. Wieczorek, Franken 1996, II, 703.<br />
89 Bracteates: Hauck, “Polytheismus” 1994, 210.<br />
90 Beowulf 884ff.; 2697ff.; Saxo Grammaticus 36.24f.: “Ventre sub imo/esse locum scito, quo<br />
ferrum mergere fas est”; see Davidson and Fisher, Saxo 1979, II, 39; even when the slayer<br />
rides on horseback, as on the Seengen disc. Edda, Fáfnismál, Introduction; Blindheim,<br />
Billedkunst 1972. The snake with the horseman from Vendel, grave 1, may be Woden<br />
himself rather than a dragon to be fought (Böhner, “Eschwege” 1991, pp. 176f. and fig. 28.2,<br />
contra Hauck, “Bilddenkmäler” 1976, 591).<br />
91 Army units being dragons: Letter of Marcus (Haines, Fronto 1963, 300ff.); Lucian, Hist.<br />
Cons. 29-Indo-European myth: Widengren, Feudalismus 1969, 46; Watkins, Dragon, 1995.<br />
Sword from underneath: Beck, Bilddenkmäler 1964, 20f. <strong>Germanic</strong> languages adopted Latin
Notes 245<br />
“draco” for “dragon” from Roman army standards, even though they had their own word,<br />
“worm”: Höfler, Siegfried 1961, 99ff.; Ploss, Siegfried 1966, 68.<br />
92 Compare the Ramsund carving, Wild, Drachen 1962, Abb. 1; Hauck, “Bilddenkmäler” 1957,<br />
366ff.; Beck, Bilddenkmäler 1964, 20f.; Hauck, “Bilddenkmäler” 1976, 596f.; Ploss,<br />
Siegfried 1966, 66–68; Düwel, Runenkunde 2001, 140–141.<br />
18<br />
HORSE-HEWERS<br />
1 Herodotus 5.110f; “with a curved sword”: . Bronze Age curved swords: Drews,<br />
End 1993, 141–163; 196f.; cf. Macqueen, Hittites 1986, 32.<br />
2 Drews, End 1993, 195f.; the slightly curved, tip-heavy Greek macheira saber, however, was a<br />
savage weapon: Connolly, Greece 1981, 98f.<br />
3 Livy 44.26 (after Polybios): “Veniebant decem milia equitum, par numerus peditum et<br />
ipsorum iungentium cursum equis et in vicem prolapsorum equitum vacuos capientium ad<br />
pugnam equos.” Wenskus, Stammesbildung 1961, 380f.; Much, Germania 1967, 148f.;<br />
Timpe, “Germanen” 1998, 204–206.<br />
4 Caesar, Gallic War 1.48: “Genus hoc erat pugnae, quo se Germani exercuerant: equitum milia<br />
erant sex, totidem numero pedites velocissimi ac fortissimi, quos ex omni copia singuli<br />
singulos suae salutis causa delegerant; cum his in proeliis versabantur, ad eos se equites<br />
recipiebant; hi, si quid erat durius, concurrebant; si qui graviore vulnere accepto equo<br />
deciderat, circumsistebant; si quo erat longius prodeundum aut celerius recipiendum, tanta<br />
erat horum exercitatione celeritas, ut iubis equorum sublevati cursum adaequarent.” Caesar,<br />
Gallic War 1.48; 8.13; Dio 38.48.2; Tacitus, Germania 6.3; Ammianus 16.12.21f.; Libanius<br />
Or. 18.265. Vegetius 3.16 finds this still useful. Wenskus, Stammesbildung 1961, 336.<br />
5 Caesar, Gallic War 7.65: “Trans Rhenum in Germaniam mittit ad eas civitates quas<br />
superioribus annis pacaverat equitesque ab his arcessit et levis armaturae pedites qui inter<br />
eos proeliari consuerant.” 7.67; 8.13: “Germani quos propterea Caesar transduxerat Rhenum<br />
ut equitibus interpositi proeliarentur”; 8.36.3f. Tacitus, Germania 6.3. Walser, Caesar 1956,<br />
62.<br />
6 Rosenberg, Hjortspringfundet 1937, 40f., swords 521; 517; 523; Raddatz, “Bewaffnung”<br />
1976, 371, fig. 78f. The swords are kept in the National Museum in Copenhagen where Dr<br />
Jørgensen kindly discussed them with me in June 1999. The blades are 2.6 cm, 2 cm, and 2.3<br />
cm broad.<br />
7 Compare the warrior wielding a scythe and a sword on the shorter Gallehus horn (Axboe et<br />
al., “Gallehus” 1998, 335, fig. 43).<br />
8 Coin: Forrer, Numismatik 1965, 290f., fig. 491. Sword: von Schnurbein, “Sica” 1979, fig. 1.<br />
Wooden swords: Capelle, “Erkenntnismöglichkeiten” 1982, 284. Dirk: Gordon, “Swords”<br />
1953, 67; Adler, Studien 1993, 63. Another curved sword or dagger, resembling the Greek,<br />
Etruscan, and Iberian macheira, lies at the feet of a furclad <strong>Germanic</strong> warrior on the arch of<br />
Carpentras in France, built at the beginning of our era: Walter, Barbares 1993, 21ff., with<br />
plate IX; Cunliffe, Celts 1977, plate XXa.<br />
9 Gabelmann, “Grabmonumente” 1973, 153f., fig. 20. The sword of Rufus’ foe at Gloucester<br />
(RIB 121; Schleiermacher, Reitergrabsteine 1984, 79) is also curved: troops from Roman<br />
Germany brought the scene to Britain.<br />
10 Crous, “Waffenpfeiler” 1933, 103, type 102.<br />
11 CIL XIII, 7023; Gabelmann, “Grabmonumente” 1973, 165 (around AD 75); Schleiermacher,<br />
Reitergrabsteine 1984, 97ff., no. 20; Boppert, Grabdenkmäler 1992, 141ff., no. 33.<br />
12 A sharp bend is also found in the sickle sword on the Gallehus horn: Axboe et al.,<br />
“Gallehus” 1998, 335, fig. 43.
Notes 246<br />
13 For the curved sword on Trajan’s Column, scene 38, see p. 229, note 36; against foot: note<br />
25 this chapter.<br />
14 Hamberg, Studies 1945, 176–179; Andreae, “Portonaccio” 1969.<br />
15 Compare the young Heruls who fought without shields (Procopius, Persian War 2.25), also<br />
for speed (Jordanes, Getica 23), see p. 64, this volume, or the barefoot British (Dio 77.12.2).<br />
16 Caesar, Civil War 1.75; Tacitus, Histories 5.22.2. If the wrap was not a coat but an animal<br />
skin, it reflects Indo-European usage, known e.g. from Arcadians (Pausanias 1.3).<br />
17 Hamberg, Studies 1945, 176, with the remark that the eagle shows the number IIII—if so, it<br />
belongs to legio quarta Flavia, stationed at Singidunum-Beograd (Ritterling, “Legio” 1924,<br />
1543).<br />
18 Christlein, Alemannen 1979, 113; Fuchs, Alamannen 1997, 88ff.; Steuer, “Theorien” 1998,<br />
291f. Compare the clubs and hammers of Donar: Werner, “Herkuleskeule” 1964. Second- or<br />
third-century miniature weapons are typical for Elbgermanen (Capelle, “Miniaturgeräte”<br />
2001, 46), the ones who haunted the Danubian frontier. Symbolic value among the Vikings<br />
still: Steuer, “Kriegswesen” 2001, 367.<br />
19 <strong>Germanic</strong> bronze guards for horse heads: Wilbers-Rost, Pferdegeschirr 1994. Dr Hanns Ubl<br />
will publish the Enns piece.<br />
20 Ilkjær, “Gegner” 1997.<br />
21 Cf. Speidel, Denkmäler 1994, 238.<br />
22 Adler, Studien 1993, 260.<br />
23 Cf. Livy 26.4.4.<br />
24 For this relationship see Wenskus, Stammesbildung 1961, 380f.<br />
25 Tacitus, Germania 6: “ex omni iuventute delectos”; Livy 26.4.4: “iuvenes”; Caesar, Civil<br />
War 3.84: “adulescentes”. Johrendt, “Milites” 1976. Roots of knighting: Höfler,<br />
“Kontinuitätsproblem” 1937, 25; Keen, Chivalry 1984, 64ff. In the Middle Ages, northerners<br />
still wielded curved swords, but we do not hear whether they used them against horses.<br />
Axboe et al., “Gallehus” 1998, 335, fig. 43; Hauck, “Germania-Texte” 1982, 195, fig. 8,<br />
where Wenskus, “Religion” 1994, 231f. sees Saturn with a scythe. In Beowulf (37:<br />
bil=falchion) the weapon is often mentioned, see Klaeber, Beowulf 1950, index 307. A<br />
curved sword on a bracteate medallion: IK 107. Norwegian curved swords: Davidson, Sword<br />
1962, 41. Eleventh century: Paulsen, Axt 1939, 225, fig. 134. A curved sword against foot:<br />
Saxo 26, 28f.<br />
19<br />
LONG-HAIRS<br />
1 Celtic hairstyles: Birkhan, Kelten 1997, 1061ff. Iranians, Indians: Warrior vase from Tepe<br />
Sialk; Widengren, Feudalismus 1969, 19; 34ff. Greeks: Iliad 2.542: ;<br />
Strabo 10.3.2. Celts: Strabo 3.3.7; see also the Watsch belt-buckle, Mallory, Search 1989,<br />
plate 13. Italic tribes: Aeneid 11.642f.; Ligurians: Lucanus, Pharsalia 442f. Spartan saying:<br />
Xenophon, Lacedaemonians 10.3; Plutarch, Lycurgus 22.1.<br />
2 Thor and Indra: Thrymsquida 1: scor nam at dýia; Ŗg Veda 10.23; Schroeder, Ursprung 1939,<br />
337f. Altheim, Niedergang I, 1952, 117, traces the Indo-European origins of this tactic and<br />
its role in ecstatic fighting; Miller, “Hair” 1998, 43. Gilgamesh shook his hair back after he<br />
overcame Humbaba: Widengren, Feudalismus 1969, 37. Long-haired Vedic Indians: Bollée,<br />
“Sodalities” 1981, 174; 190; Iranians: Binder, Aussetzung 1964, 35. Lusitani: Appian,<br />
Iberika 67, cf. Strabo 3.154f.; Norden, Urgeschichte 1974, 164.<br />
3 Ammianus 16.12.36: “eorumque ultra solitum saevientium comae fluentes.” A literary<br />
commonplace: Norden, Urgeschichte 1974, 164. Flashing eyes: see p. 69f.
Notes 247<br />
4 Goths: Eunapius VI, frag. 37 (Blockley), 9f. (Excerpta de leg. gent. 5). Byzantine private<br />
guards, aping the imperial guard: Gregory of Nyssa, De creatione hominis II (p. 63,<br />
Hörner):<br />
.<br />
5 Hamðismál 20: “Scóc hann scor iarpa,” not “flung back his hair” as in Dronke, Edda I, 1969,<br />
165.<br />
6 Well-kempt: Tukulti-Ninurta epic 3.30ff.; Herodotus 7.208; Plutarch, Lycurgus 22.1;<br />
Sidonius, Carmina 12 (Burgundians of the “crinigera caterva” kept their hair together with<br />
rancid butter). McCone, “Hund” 1987, 126f.; Demandt, Staatsformen 1995, 632f.; Miller,<br />
“Hair” 1998. Bother: Maurice, Strategikon 12.B.1. Spartans: Herodotus 7.208; Xenophon,<br />
Lacedaimonians 10.3; Plutarch, Lycurgus 22.1. Thracians: Iliad 4.533; silver bridal<br />
decoration from Letnitsa, Bulgaria (Cunliffe, Prehistory 1994, 385). Lusitani: Strabo 3.3.7.<br />
7 Norden, Urgeschichte 1974, 207ff.; 265–274; Schmidt, Westgermanen 1970, 352; Perl,<br />
Germania 1990, 212: “Die sachkundigen Einzelheiten gehen wohl auf einen Augenzeugen<br />
der Feldzüge zurück (z.B. Pomponius Secundus, ann. 12, 27ff., war mit dem älteren Plinius<br />
bekannt: Pliny, Nat. 18.83; 14.56; Pliny, Epist. 3.5.4). A less flattering verdict about Pliny:<br />
Walser, Rom 1951, 65. Observation as a source of Tacitus’ Germania: Bringmann, “Topoi”<br />
1989, criticized by Lund, “Germania” 1991, 2211. Comments (though not those of Norden)<br />
on the sources and trust-worthiness of the Germania: Lund, “Germania” 1991, 2215–2222;<br />
Perl, Germania 1990, 38–45; Rives, Tacitus 1999, 249f.<br />
8 Tacitus, Germania 31 (Winterbottom 1975; also Furneaux 1884): “Et aliis Germanorum<br />
populis usurpatum raro et privata cuiusque audentia apud Chattos in consensum vertit, ut<br />
primum adoleverint crinem barbamque submittere nec nisi hoste caeso exuere votivum<br />
obligatumque virtuti oris habitum. Super sanguinem et spolia revelant frontem seque tum<br />
demum pretia nascendi rettulisse dignosque patria ac parentibus ferunt. Ignavis et imbellibus<br />
manet squalor. Fortissimus quisque ferreum insuper anulum (ignominiosum id genti) velut<br />
vinculum gestat, donec se caede hostis absolvat. Plurimis Chattorum hic placet habitus,<br />
iamque canent insignes et hostibus simul suisque monstrati. Omnium penes hos initia<br />
pugnarum; haec prima semper acies, visu nova. Nam ne in pace quidem cultu mitiore<br />
mansuescunt. Nulli domus aut ager aut aliqua cura; prout ad quemque venere, aluntur,<br />
prodigi alieni, contemptores sui, donec exsanguis senectus tam durae virtuti impares faciat.”<br />
Much, Germania 1967, 385–392; Lund, “Germania” 1991, 1926f.; 2126f. Hairstyle:<br />
Demandt, Staatsformen 1995, 548.<br />
9 For example, Fehrle, Germania 1929, 39 (= 1959, 45); Weiser, Jünglingsweihen 1927, 33;<br />
Clemen, “Altersklassen” 1938; Höfler, Rumenstein 1952, 190: “diese geweihte Tracht des<br />
Hauptes, durch die sie sich zur Tapferkeit verpflichten, abzulegen.” They all mistake os<br />
(face) for Haupt (head). Lund, Tacitus 1988, 95, omits os altogether: “Haartracht”; Perl,<br />
Germania 1990, 109: “Kopf”; Fuhrmann, Germania 1972, 45, rightly translates “Gesicht”<br />
but then goes on to claim “Haarwust” for the elite warriors (p. 85); Weiser-Aall,<br />
“Chattenkrieger” 1932, “Zweimal dieselbe Maske.” Ulrich, “Einschaltung” 1936, 132: “Die<br />
grössere Zahl der Jünglinge legen, wenn sie einen Feind erschlagen haben, die wüste<br />
Haartracht ab. Die Schar der Auserlesenen aber trägt diese als Ehrenzeichen bis an ihr<br />
Ende.” Much, Germania 1967, 386: “die Haare geschnitten”; Timpe, “Absicht” 1989, 126:<br />
“Bartablegung.” Best: Birley, Tadtus 1999, 53 (“fece”).<br />
10 Tacitus, Germania 38.20: “Capillum retro pectuntur ac saepe in ipso vertice religant.”<br />
11 Perl, Germania 1990, 214, was on the right track: “vielleicht blieb die Stirn frei.”<br />
12 Ritterling, “Legio” 1924, 1696. Strobel, “Chattenkrieg” 1987. Hänggi, “Bataver” 1990.<br />
13 Vindonissa Museum, Brugg, Inv. 770; Hartmann, Römer 1985, fig. 23. The wreath and the<br />
palm leaf on the tile hint of triumph, the inscription hails “l(egio) XI C(laudia) p(ia)<br />
f(idelis).” There are lines down the young man’s neck, but they are not a hairband, for a band
Notes 248<br />
tied behind the head would have to come forward from the sides. Thus the lines down the<br />
neck are tendons, cf. Hänggi, “Bataver” 1990, 69: “Versuch einer Halsmuskelwiedergabe.”<br />
14 Vindonissa Museum, Brugg, Inv. 3050; Hartmann, Römer 1985, fig. 27. Hänggi, “Bataver”<br />
1990, 71, interprets the hairband as “staffs” (“Die beiden unterhalb der Ohren ansetzenden<br />
Stangen könnten darauf hinweisen, dass dieser Kopf trotz erkennbarem Halsansatz<br />
aufgespiesst war”), however a round hairband of just this shape is seen on the Vindonissa<br />
roof tile, inv. no. 4225: Hartmann, Römer 1985, fig. 25.<br />
15 Hänggi, “Bataver” 1990, 70f.: “Sein Bart wirkt etwas kürzer, vielleicht sogar gepflegter.”<br />
Tacitus does not say that the Chatti threw off their beards, pace Timpe, “Absicht” 1989, 126:<br />
“Bartablegung.”<br />
16 Nor need the unproven and cowards be killed off lest they be mistaken for leading warriors,<br />
contra: Weiser-Aall, “Chattenkrieger” 1932.<br />
17 Fuhrmann, Germania 1972, 85; Timpe, “Absicht” 1989, 126.<br />
18 Gabelmann, “Grabmonumente” 1973, 165 (around AD 75); Schleiermacher,<br />
Reitergrabsteine 1984, 97ff., no. 20; Boppert Grabdenkmäler 1992, 141ff., no 33.<br />
19 Schumacher and “Klumbach, Germanendarstellungen 1935, 71: “Auf dem Scheitel<br />
zusammengebunden.”<br />
20 Nudi: Tacitus, Germania 6. See p. 167, this volume.<br />
21 Schumacher and Klumbach, Germanendarstellungen 1935, no. 72; Schleiermacher,<br />
Reitergrabsteine 1984, 136f., no. 45; Boppert, Steindenkmaler 1998, 83ff., no. 49.<br />
22 Landesdenkmalamt Koblenz-Ehrenbreitstein; Gabelmann, “Grabmonumente” 1973, fig. 10.<br />
23 See Romanius’ gravestone, Mainz (Figure 17.1); Schleiermacher, Reitergrabsteine 1984,<br />
110; Boppert, Grabdenkmäler 1992, 31; also Carminius’ gravestone (Figure 19.1).<br />
24 Jean Krier, “Der Sterbende Gallier,” Antike Kunst 31, 2000, 80.<br />
25 A captured woman, comforting a fettered prisoner, is found also on the Halberstadt Diptych:<br />
Schumacher and Klumbach, Germanendarstellungen 1935, 166.<br />
26 Gabelmann, “Grabmonumente” 1973, 145, fig. 12. See Figure 5.2 and p. 62, this volume.<br />
27 The gravestone of Longinus at Colchester portrays the hair squalor of the warrior on the<br />
ground. Perhaps a motif brought along from Germany.<br />
28 No ponytails aside from Andes’ and Carminius’ gravestones are found in Schumacher and<br />
Klumbach, Germanendarstellungen 1935 (esp. p. 69), nor in Paulovics,<br />
“Germanendarstellungen” 1934, Hamberg, “Germanen” 1936, or Krierer, “Ritt” 1997.<br />
Schmidt, Westgermanen 1970, 365, claims, against Tacitus’ evidence, that Chattian hairstyle<br />
was no different from that of other tribes.<br />
29 Schumacher and Klumbach, Germanendarstellungen 1935, 59f.<br />
30 Contra Rives, Tacitus 1999, 249: “There is no other evidence for this custom.”<br />
31 Davie, Evolution 1929, 15; Freeman, Report 1970, 238, says of the Iban of Sarawak: “When<br />
he had taken a head, and only then, was an Iban male entitled to have the back of his hand<br />
tattooed. With this achieved, his prowess was on constant display …and he was much sought<br />
after as a husband.” Cf. Turney-High, War 1991, 84ff.; 145; 149; 162.<br />
32 Clendinnen, Aztecs 1991, 113. Accomplished warriors were shorn: Salmoral, America 1990,<br />
202; Clendinnen, Aztecs 1991, 117; Hassig, War 1992, 142.<br />
33 Neumann, “Chatten” 1981; Birkhan, “Namenselement” 1967, 117 and 138f., even though he<br />
now takes the name of the Hessians to be different (Kelten 1997, 834).<br />
34 Hamberg, “Germanen” 1936, rightly points out that Roman literary and artistic portrayals of<br />
Germani echo one another. Lund’s objection of “Zeitgeist” (“Germania” 1991, 2053) falls on<br />
himself. A searching discussion: Timpe, “Absicht” 1989.<br />
35 Hairdo as ethnic identification: Eusebius, Vita Constantini 4.7.1; Demandt, Staatsformen<br />
1995, 548. Tacitus’ words were not written against Roman emperors (contra Lund,<br />
“Germania” 1991, 1934; 2159; cf. Timpe, “Absicht” 1989, 107). For a comparable<br />
gravestone with a “Suebian knot” see that of Cantaber from Mainz: Schleiermacher,
Notes 249<br />
Reitergrabsteine, 1984, no. 22; Boppert, Grabdenkmäler 1992, no 30. Germani in the minor<br />
arts: Paulovics, “Germanendarstellungen” 1934; RadnotiAlfbldi, “Plebs” 1994.<br />
36 Tacitus, Germania 31: “haec semper prima acies, visu nova”; ibid. 38. One can see the plight<br />
of Caligula and Domitian who, for their Chatti triumphs, bought <strong>Germanic</strong> prisoners on the<br />
slave market, but then had to make their hair look Chatti-like. Suetonius, Caligula, 47;<br />
Tacitus, Agricola 39.<br />
37 Aeneid 9.610ff.; Horsfall, “Romulus” 1971, 1112f. Lund’s comparison with philosophers<br />
(“Germania” 1991, 1927) goes to the wrong context.<br />
38 Tacitus, Histories 4.61.1: “Civilis barbaro voto post coepta adversus Romanos arma<br />
propexum (=over his forehead) rutilatumque crinem patrata demum caede legionum<br />
deposuit.” See also Voluspa 33 “ne hofuð kemði”; Baldrs draumar 11; Much, Germania<br />
1967, 38. A similar Roman custom (Suetonius, Iulius 67.2; Augustus 23.2) may be rather a<br />
gesture of mourning as suggested by Rives, Tacitus 1999, 250.<br />
39 Relatives: Wenskus, Stammesbildung 1961, 365 and 424.<br />
40 Saxo 179.37f.: “Renodat caesariem et laxos patitur fluitare capillos.”<br />
41 Suebi: Much, Germania 1967, 427ff. Franks: plaque from Grésin, Salin, Civilization 1959,<br />
plate XI, facing p. 400; 573. Sixth-century Danish bracteate medallions show Woden with a<br />
braid knotted in the back (Hauck, Goldbrakteaten I, 1985, 103f.). The legendary Danish hero<br />
Starkadr held open hair unbecoming to a warrior (Saxo 179).<br />
42 Furneaux, Germania 1884, 94; Weiser, Jünglingsweihen 1927, 43ff.; Höfler, Runenstein<br />
1952, 192; Much, Germania 1967, 389; Fuhrmann, Germania 1972, 85; Blaney, “Berserkr”<br />
1972, 89; Timpe, “Absicht” 1989, 126; Timpe, Studien 1995, 227; Perl, Germania 1990,<br />
215; Davidson, Beliefs 1993, 99; Kershaw, God 2000, 43. No connection with berserks:<br />
Wenskus, Stammesbildung 1961, 365; Rives, Tacitus 1999, 251.<br />
43 Virtus: see p. 120. The Chatti had a shrine of Woden (Gudensberg) at their state center:<br />
Höfler, Runenstein 1952, 155.<br />
44 Saxo 58.23f.: “Armillas dextrae excipiant, quo fortius ictus collibrare queant et amarum<br />
figere vulnus.” Höfler, Runenstein 1952, 191f.; Much, Germania 1967, 388.<br />
45 Rings as a warband badge: Werner, “Armring” 1980; Steuer, “Ringschwert” 1987; Lund-<br />
Hansen, “Goldring” 1998. Woden: Rives, Tacitus 1999, 250f. Rives’ objection that Tacitus<br />
says nothing about animal warriors vanishes when one recognizes northern berserks as<br />
originally mad and naked rather than animal fighters. In the north many snake-headed<br />
wristbands were sacrificed and hence had a religious meaning: Werner, “Armring” 1980,<br />
25–60.<br />
46 Turney-High, War 1991, 258; Przyluski, “Loups-garous” 1940, 134f.<br />
47 Blaney, “Berserkr” 1972, 146; Birkhan, Kelten 1997, 1046. Weiser, Jünglingsweihen 1927,<br />
38, and Kershaw, God 2000, 46 suggest religious reasons. The Chatti had a religious<br />
organization with a state priest: (Strabo 7.1.4, p. 292).<br />
48 Güntert, Geschichten 1912, 9ff.; Simek, Dictionary 1993, 35.<br />
49 Eyrbyggja saga 25: “Berserks to serve and guard you.”<br />
50 Germania 43: “primi in omnibus proeliis oculi vincuntur.”<br />
51 Claudian, Eutrop. 1.383f.: “detonsa Sygambria”; Maurice, Strategikon 12.B.1 (=Dennis,<br />
Strategikon 1984, 420). Wolfram, Goten 1990, 111.<br />
52 Tacitus, Germania 38; Appian, Celtica 8; Ammianus 16.12.24; Sidonius, Carmina 12.<br />
Miller, “Hair” 1998, 41–60. Chnodomar: Ammianus 16.12.24. Harald Wartooth: Saxo<br />
207.10 “Mitra auro variata capillitium redimitus in hostem progreditur,” which seems to be<br />
old, contra Höfler, Runenstein 1952, 93; Ninck, Wodan 1935, 24. Vikings: e.g. Saxo 207.<br />
53 Paul the Deacon, Historia Longobardorum 3.7: “Sex milia Saxonum qui bello superfuerant<br />
devoverunt se neque barbam neque capillos incisuros, nisi se de Suavis hostibus<br />
ulciscerentur”; Gregory of Tours, History 5.15.
Notes 250<br />
54 Snorri Sturlusson, Haralds saga Hárfagra 23 (AD 872); Höfler, Runenstein 1952, 196f.;<br />
Rives, Tacitus 1999, 249ff.<br />
20<br />
HELMET-WEARERS<br />
1 Ŗg-Veda 8.7.25; also 5.54.11; other Vedic warriors had helmets made of several pieces:<br />
Zimmer, Leben 1879, 298. Scythian open-work helmet: from the Ak-Burun Kurgan, now in<br />
St Petersburg, Ermitage nr. AKB 28, cf. Sembach, Gold 1984, 127. Celtic helmets for looks:<br />
Bruneaux and Lambot, Guerre 1987, 102ff. Golden helmets for outstanding foreigners<br />
serving in the Roman army: Arrian, Tactica 34.2.<br />
2 Kimmig, “Bewaffnung” 1976, 384; Cunliffe, Prehistory 1994, 330.<br />
3 Writers: Plutarch, Marius 25 (see p. 52, this volume; Tacitus, Germania 6: “vix uni alterive<br />
cassis aut galea”; Tacitus, Annals 2.14; Cassius Dio 38.50.2; Agathias 2.5; Alföldi,<br />
“Helmform” 1934, 139f.; Much, Germania 1967, 144ff.; Steuer, “Ringschwert” 1987, 196f.;<br />
Waurick, “Helm” 1999, 327f. Reworked: Enkevort and Willems, “Helmets” 1994;<br />
Reichmann, “Schlachtfelder” 1994. Raddatz, “Bewaffnung” 1976, 374; Waurik, “Helm”<br />
1999, 327f.<br />
4 Cichorius, Reliefs II, 1896, 175, describes the helmets correctly thus: “Die vier anderen<br />
Soldaten tragen dagegen eine deutliche eiserne Haube, bestehend aus einem starken Bügel,<br />
der von der Stirn zum Hinterkopf geht und rund um den Kopf sowie von Ohr zu Ohr einen<br />
eisernen Reifen hat; zwischen den einzelnen Eisenteilen der Haube, die durch ein eisernes<br />
Sturmband unter dem Kinn gehalten wird, blickt deutlich das Kopfhaar hervor.”<br />
5 “Buckelhelme,” worn during the early Empire by auxiliaries along the Rhine frontier, show<br />
curls embossed on the bowl of the helmet and thus likewise reflect a warrior’s pride in his<br />
hair as the seat of life (Schleiermacher, Reitergrabsteine 1984, 73; 90; 93; 100; 110; 123).<br />
Hair: p. 175; Roth, “Bilddenkmäler” 1976, 555; Böhner, “Niederdollendorf’ 1950, 67. Being<br />
bowls, Buckelhelme are not open, show no true hair, and altogether differ in their structure<br />
from crossband helmets (Klumbach, Helme 1974, 45f.). Wigs: Künzl, “Fellhelme” 1999.<br />
6 Buckles also fasten the neck guards of several fourth-century Roman comb helmets:<br />
Berkasovo 1 and 2; Deurne; St Giorgio di Nogara. Klumbach, Gardehelme 1973.<br />
Manojlović-Marijanski, “Fund” 1973, 30f., sees, perhaps rightly, in leather-fastened cheek<br />
guards a non-Roman tradition.<br />
7 Reinach’s drawings are reproduced in Le Bohec, Armée 1989, XII.<br />
8 Froehner, Colonne 1865, 101.<br />
9 Somewhat similar are third-century helmets from Dura-Europos as Ubl, “Eisenhelme” 2001,<br />
8, rightly points out. Yet their high paraboloid shape and ridged bands set them off as very<br />
distantly, if at all, related.<br />
10 Arwidsson, Valsgärde 1977, 26.<br />
11 Another type of crossband helmet, dated to the fifth and sixth centuries, with very broad<br />
bands and the spaces between the bands filled, is named after the find spot at Bretzenheim<br />
near Mainz and may be a sub-group of the same tradition: List, “Spangenhelme” 1903;<br />
Behrens, “Kriegergräber” 1916, 6; Gamber, “Waffen” 1964, 16, Böhner, “Spangenhelme”<br />
1994, 535ff.; a tenth-century crossband helmet from Groningen/Netherlands: Jager,<br />
Koningen 2000, 11. Not crossband helmets in this sense are Trajanic bowl helmets<br />
reinforced by crossbands, contra: Böhner, “Spangenhelme” 1994, 535ff.<br />
12 Klumbach, Gardehelme 1973; Overbeck, “Zeugnisse” 1974; James, “Helmets” 1986;<br />
Simkins, <strong>Warriors</strong> 1988, 151–154. Alföldi, “Helmform” 1934, 118f., 139ff., does not keep<br />
the crossband helmet well enough apart from the comb (“ridge”) helmet.
Notes 251<br />
13 Contra: Alföldi, “Helmform” 1934, 118ff.; Arwidsson, Valsgärde 1977, 21–33; Hauck,<br />
“Germania-Texte” 1982, 214; Almgren, “Helmets” 1983, 11–16; Ambrosiani, “Regalia”<br />
1983; Steuer, “Ringschwert” 1987, 200ff.; Böhner, “Spangenhelme” 1994, 539; Steuer,<br />
“Helm” 1999, 332: “Dabei wird später die Kalotte aufgelöst in kreuzweise<br />
übereinandergelegte oder ein Netz bildende Bänder,” which staggers belief; Ubl,<br />
“Eisenhelme” 2001, 8.<br />
14 Leaving aside reworked Roman helmets and unreliable trophies, finds of <strong>Germanic</strong> helmets<br />
are reported in Schumacher and Klumbach, Germanendarstellungen 1935, 60, and Much,<br />
Germania 1967, 145. Quadi: CIL III 10969—RIU 509 (Brigetio). Constantinian cavalry<br />
helmets: Klumbach, Gardehelme 1973, 9–14; James, “Helmets” 1986. Vendel helmets:<br />
Steuer, “Ringschwert” 1987, 199ff.; Böhner, “Spangenhelme” 1994, 533ff.<br />
15 No Carolingian helmet finds: Steuer, “Helm” 1999, 335. Coin of Probus: Victoria Gutthica<br />
binio gold medallion, Catalogue Auction Leu 1997, no. 119; another coin of Probus (RIC<br />
913) shows a captured warrior perhaps with a wale helmet. A Frank or Alaman seems to be<br />
shown with a wale helmet on the Constantinian coin of AD 315, RIC VII, 1966, Ticinum<br />
28=M.R. Alföldi, Goldprägung 1963, no. 159, p. 45 and plate 5, fig. 74.<br />
16 Bishop and Coulston, Equipment 1993, 172; Böhner, “Spangenhelme” 1994.<br />
17 Beowulf 1030–1034; Bruce-Mitford, Aspects 1974, 210ff.; Arwidsson, Valsgarde 1977, 21f.<br />
18 Hittites: the guardian at the King’s Gate in Hattusas, e.g. Macqueen, Hittites 1986,<br />
frontispiece. Hallstatt Celts: Kimmig, “Bewaffnung” 1976, 403.<br />
19 They take the place of the (bird dragon?) beaks on the Viksø helmets (see note 2, this<br />
chapter). Twin dragons are found across Europe on fourth- to sixth-century sword chapes,<br />
belt buckles, brooches, amulets and fibulae, often fashioned as a two-headed wyrm (Werner,<br />
“Heilsbilder” 1963; Böhner, “Eschwege” 1991, 699f) may be a very specific symbol. Belt<br />
buckles with twin dragons of varying heads (“Tierschnallen”) are known from the fourth<br />
century, e.g. Waurick, Gallien 1980, 152ff; 176ff. Vierck, “Nordendorf” 1967, 123ff.;<br />
Böhner, “Spangenhelme” 1994, 452ff.; Fuchs, Alamannen 1997, fig. 149 (Runder Berg).<br />
Twin dragons on bracteate medallions: Hauck, Goldbrakteaten 1985, nos. 262 and 286.<br />
20 Bruce-Mitford, Aspects 1974, 210.<br />
21 Ammianus 18.8.12; 31.7.4: “Quorundam capita per medium frontis et verticis mucrone<br />
distincta in utrumque umerum magno cum horrore pendebat.” Óláfs saga Helga 226;<br />
Davidson, Sword 1962, 196f.; Myths 1988, 78.<br />
22 Hair: Grönbech, Kultur 1997, II, 124; Birkhan, Kelten 1997, 1063. Later <strong>Germanic</strong> helmets,<br />
like that of Sigurd at Hylestad, also left much hair to be seen. Took off helmets: Ammianus<br />
20.11.12, see p. 67, this volume; William the Conqueror showed his face in the battle of<br />
Hastings in 1066—witness the Bayeux tapestry.<br />
23 During the first two centuries of our era Germani rarely fought with bow and arrows:<br />
Raddatz, “Bewaffnung” 1976, 425; 429f.; Wenskus, “Bewaffnung” 1976, 459.<br />
24 Cichorius, Reliefs II, 1896, 178: “Zu einer Bestimmung dieser Truppe fehlt jeder<br />
Anhaltspunkt.”<br />
25 Cheesman, Auxilia 1914, 131, rightly took them for such: “helmets of a curious Teutonic<br />
pattern.”<br />
26 Wrede, Hermengalerie 1972, herms 68 and 69 with plates 34.1; 36.1; 35.1; pp. 70f. Bruce-<br />
Mitford, Sutton Hoo 1978, 374 (though hardly a hint of “sexual ambiguity”).<br />
27 Such as the numerus Hnaudifridi, RIB 1576.<br />
28 AD 200: Ilkjær, “Gegner” 1997. Franks: Sidonius, Letters 4.20. Weapons given: Tacitus,<br />
Germania 14; for the law codes see McCormick, Victory 1986, 292, note 149-Beowulf 303–<br />
306; see also 334; 2517f.; 2635–2638; 2642; 2864ff.; Höfler, Schriften 1992, 91ff.; 105ff.<br />
The custom was adopted by Roman emperors for their guards, cf. Alföldi, “Helmform”<br />
1934, 108. Eagle helmets: Böhner, “Eschwege” 1991, fig. 30; Helmet 7 from Valsgarde<br />
(Hauck, “Polytheismus” 1994, figs. 12a and 13); Steuer, “Ringschwert” 1987, 196f. The
Notes 252<br />
Icelander Bolli’s eleven followers all wore red scarlet dress and rode in golden saddles<br />
(Laxardal saga 77). Dagsson: Heimskringla, Haraldssona saga 26.<br />
29 Few swords: Tacitus, Germania 6: “rari gladiis utuntur.” Evans, Lords 1997, 38f. Helmets:<br />
see note 3.<br />
30 Chariovalda, leader of the Batavians fighting for Rome in Tiberius’ time, Tacitus, Annals<br />
2.11: “ac multi nobilium circa” (AD 16); for Chariovalda’s troops perhaps becoming<br />
regulars, see Alföldy, Hilfstruppen 1968, 91. In AD 470 Prince Sigimer, perhaps from the<br />
Rhine area, had a following of armed reguli, Sidonius, Letters 4.20; likewise Beowulf 357:<br />
“mid his eorla gedriht.” Saxo in the thirteenth century states (54, 34f., and 12.1f.): “Tanto<br />
etenim princeps aciem securior intrat, quanto illum melius procerum stipaverit agmen”—a<br />
prince enters the fight the safer, the stronger the band of athelings that guards him.” Seven<br />
kings as a bodyguard: Saxo 217. Units of their own: Ammianus 16.12.49: “optimatium<br />
globus” (AD 357); Saxo 220. Gothic optimates troops of the sixth century: Haldon,<br />
Praetorians 1984, 96ff.<br />
31 Sword as noblest weapon: see p. 63. Raddatz, “Bewaffnung” 1976, 425: “Das für den Stich<br />
geeignete leichte Schwert war von nachgeordneter Bedeutung” no doubt refers to its rarity<br />
rather than its standing in the eyes of the warriors.<br />
32 Anglo-Saxon helmets: Steuer, “Ringschwert” 1987, 200f. Almgren, “Helmets” 1983;<br />
Waurick, “Helm” 1999, 327f. See also Pollington, Way 1989, 150: “Manuscripts often show<br />
a style of helmet consisting of a circular rim, to which are attached two metal bands which<br />
intersect at the crown… It is perfectly possible that substantial numbers were produced to<br />
equip those freemen who regularly engaged in military service.”<br />
33 Sutton Hoo and Benty Grange helmets: Bruce-Mitford, Aspects 1974; Bruce-Mitford, Sutton<br />
Hoo 1978, 203–225.<br />
34 Tweddle, “Coppergate” 1982.<br />
35 Bruce-Mitford, Aspects 1974, 231.<br />
36 Last, “Bewaffnung” 1976, 469: Stuttgarter Bilderpsalter fol. 90 verso. Steuer, “Helm” 1999,<br />
335.<br />
37 Förstemann, Namenbuch 1900, 808 and 1518.<br />
38 Alföldi, “Helmform” 1934, 119; Hauck, “Germania-Texte” 1982, 214: “Subspatantike”;<br />
Almgren, “Helmets” 1983.<br />
39 Ambrosiani, “Regalia” 1983; Steuer, “Ringschwert” 1987, 200ff.<br />
40 Steuer, “Ringschwert” 1987, 200; Capelle, “Gjermundbu” 1998, 126ff. Steuer, “Helm” 1999,<br />
337.<br />
41 Jankuhn, “Herrschaftszeichen” 1954, 105–114; von Carnap-Bornheim, “Forschungen” 1997.<br />
42 Alföldi, “Helmform” 1934, 119; Deér, “Kaiserkrone” 1950; Almgren, “Helmets” 1983. The<br />
crossband crown of Theodahad, king of the Ostrogoths 534–536, as seen on several coins<br />
(pictures in Altheim, Krise 1943, plate 73; Müller, Einfluss 1998, Abb. 1; 3; 4), according to<br />
Altheim, Niedergang I, 1952, 107, and Müller, Einfluss 1998, 58, is a textile cap, and not a<br />
metal crown, but the similar openwork cap Vandal kings gave to their Moorish vassals in<br />
North Africa is called by Procopius (Vandal War 3.25.7) “a silver cap, not covering all of the<br />
head but like a wreath, and held in place on all sides by silver straps.” The word for cap here<br />
is the same as that used by Procopius, Gothic War 4.32.18, for the Gothic crown or cap.<br />
Even as a cap the Gothic royal headgear is astonishingly close to crossband crowns. The<br />
Lombard crown, depicted twice on the Agilulf visor (Fuchs, Alamannen 1997, 407; von<br />
Hessen, Contributo 1975, 90–97 with plate 30) may be a crossband helmet. Crossband<br />
crowns are also that of St Candidus in St Maurice, Switzerland, (Furger, Schweiz 1996, 66)<br />
and that worn by Rudolf of Swabia around AD 1080 (Schramm, Kaiser 1983, 395).<br />
43 Alföldi, “Helmform” 1934, 140ff.; Chaney, Cult 1970, 137ff.; Gussone and Steuer,<br />
“Diadem” 1984, 368ff and 371, on Charlemagne; Steuer, “Ringschwert” 1987, 196.<br />
44 Ammianus 27.10.10f.; Kraft, “Helm” 1951.
Notes 253<br />
45 Laxardal saga 21. Snorri Sturlusson,, Heimskringla, Haraldssona saga 26; Óláfs saga Helga<br />
213; 226; also Hákonar saga Góða 28.<br />
46 Schramm, Kaiser 1983, 273; Gussone and Steuer, “Diadem” 1984, 371. Soldiers: see note<br />
36.<br />
47 Steenbock, Prachteinband 1965, 156ff. and fig. 89. Unlike Steenbock, one should date the<br />
book cover to Lothair’s own reign, so M. Schulze-Dörrlamm, Mainz, advises me, to whose<br />
kindness I owe many of the references here.<br />
48 Ivory carving from Seitenstetten, now in the Metropolitan Museum, New York; Schramm,<br />
Kaiser 1983, 335.<br />
49 Schramm, “Herrschaftszeichen” 1954; Schulze-Dörrlamm, “Zierelemente” 1998.<br />
50 Schulze-Dörrlamm, “Zierelemente” 1998. The decorative elements over the wala may<br />
indeed imitate Constantine’s helmet but the architecture of browband and fore-to-aft band is<br />
altogether different from Constantine’s half-bowl helmet.<br />
51 Jankuhn, “Herrschaftszeichen” 1954, 105–111; Schramm, Herrschaftszeichen 1954, I, 230,<br />
and especially II, 396f. (unjustly criticized by Deér, “Byzanz” 1957). The openness, merely<br />
potential to Schramm, is actual in the openwork helmets of Trajan’s Column. More recent<br />
literature: Steuer, “Ringschwert” 1987, 196. Made in 1027: Schulze-Dörrlamm,<br />
“Zierelemente” 1998. Gussone and Steuer, “Diadem” 1984, 371, think of “neue<br />
Kronenformen wie Bügelkrone.”<br />
52 Harold Godwinson, the last Anglo-Saxon king (AD 1066) also may have worn an open<br />
crossband-wale crown: witness a silver penny of the Lewes mint, BMC Anglo-Saxon 11.46.<br />
See also the gold penny of Edward the Confessor: Sutherland, Coinage 1973, no. 216, plate<br />
20.<br />
53 Golden helmet: Gylfaginning 51; Skáldskaparmál 17 (gullhjálm). Shared: Eliade, Myth 1963.<br />
21<br />
IRON AGE WARRIORS AND THE CIVILIZATIONS OF GREECE<br />
AND ROME<br />
1 Chariotry: Drews, Coming 1988; Drews, End 1993. Stelae: Telegin-Mallory, Stelae 1994; see<br />
p. 57, this volume.<br />
2 Svadbā, Maruts: Ŗg-Veda 7.56.13; Pokorny, Wörterbuch 1959, 883; Benveniste, Vocabulaire<br />
1969, 331–332; Dumézil, Destiny 1970, 62ff; Stibbe et al., Lapis 1980; Bollée, “Sodalities”<br />
1981; Bremmer, “Suodales” 1982 (cf. AE 1996, 399); Puhvel, Mythology 1987, 55; 242;<br />
Mallory and Adams, Encyclopedia 1997, 631. Compare the warrior societies of North<br />
American Indians: Turney-High, War 1991, 211ff. Origin: Alföldi, Struktur 1974, 86ff.;<br />
151ff.<br />
3 Ŗg-Veda 1.85.8; Schmitt, Dichtung 1967, 61ff.; Schmitt, “Altertumskunde” 2000, 399.<br />
4 Plato, Nomoi 637.d.8 (Celts being drinkers); Plutarch, Marius 19.3 (Germani); Herodian 6.3.7<br />
(Persians). Schröder, “Indra” 1957; also the warrior Vrkodarah, “Wolf-belly,” Bhagavadgita<br />
1.15; Plutarch, Camillus 5.44.6 (Gauls); Tacitus, Germania 14.2; Histories 2.21.1f.; 4.29.1;<br />
þrymskviða 24. Ash, Ordering 1999, 42f.<br />
5 Losers: Strabo 4.4.5. Courage: Aristotle, Euthydemian Ethics 1229.b.22f.; Nicomachian<br />
Ethics 1115b.24ff.; Politics 1327.b.25. Little to live for: Quintilion 3.14.55; Panegyrici<br />
Latini 12.24.2: “Francus…qui vitam pro victus sui vilitate contemnet”; Ammianus 21.13.13:<br />
“Feritate speque postrema ad perniciosam audaciam prompti.” See note 6. A late-Roman<br />
Platonist, Themistius, went so far as to suggest that the Roman emperor needed no soldiers<br />
at all: he could prevail with reason alone (Oratio 18.219b).<br />
6 Plutarch, Lycurgus 22.3 (no overgreat fury!); Polybios 2.35.2–3; Caesar, Gallic War 1.40.4;<br />
Strabo 4.4.2; Seneca, De ira 1.11.3–4; Tacitus, Histories 4.29: “temeritas inanis, inconsulta
Notes 254<br />
ira.” Dio 38.45.4–5; Herodian 6.3.7; Dexippos fragment 26.5 (Jacoby, FGH II A 100);<br />
Ammianus 15.4.11.<br />
7 Ammianus 29–5.38: “sine sui respectu ruentes in pugnam”; Maurice, Strategikon 11.3.<br />
8 Iliad 4.427–431.<br />
9 Thucydides 1.6; Ammianus 23.6.75 (on Iranians as against Greeks). Hoplites: Estell, “Poetry”<br />
2000, 6ff.; Stoll, “Gemeinschaft” 2002, 158ff.<br />
10 Spartans: Plutarch, Agesilaos 34.<br />
11 Thucydides 3.97ff.; Macrobius, Saturnalia 5.18.13ff.<br />
12 Thucydides 7.30; Connolly, Greece 1981, 49; Raeck, Barbarenbild 1981.<br />
13 Italic and <strong>Germanic</strong> tribes still neighbors near the end of the second millennium BC: Fromm,<br />
“Lehnsforschung” 1999, 213–230, 216f.; Schmidt, “Isoglossen” 1999, 234f.; Birkhan,<br />
“Germanen” 1970, 390f.<br />
14 Rome and Italy: Aeneid 7.641ff., cf. Silius Italicus, Punica 8, 356ff. (bears: 8.523). Firehardened<br />
spear-tips: Livy 1.32.12: “hasta praeusta.” Propertius 4.1.27f.: “Nec rudis infestis<br />
miles radiabat in armis, miscebant usta praelia nuda sude.” Half-naked: Alföldi, Reiteradel<br />
1952, 50ff. Flowing hair: Aeneid 11.640ff. Open combat, single combat: Livy 1.24ff.; 42.47;<br />
Polybius 13.3; 36.9; Demandt, Idealstaat 1993, 252ff. Raucous song: Aeneid 7.705. Use of<br />
clichés here: Schweizer, Vergil 1967, 16f. Roman warbands: AE 1996, 339 (Stibbe et al.,<br />
Lapis 1980; Bremmer, “Suodales” 1982).<br />
15 Demandt, Idealstaat 1993, 250ff.<br />
16 Reckless attack, single combat: London, Soldiers, forthcoming. Hair: Miller, “Hair” 1998;<br />
auxiliaries: Lucanus, Pharsalia 1.442: “Nunc tonse Ligur, quondam per colla decore crinibus<br />
effusis toti praelate Comatae”; Maurice, Strategikon 12.B.1. Stand still: Caesar, Civil War<br />
3.92, cf. von See, “Germane” 1981, 62-Caesar, of course, knew better; Arrian, Ektaxis 25;<br />
Ammianus 16.12.47: “quieti et cauti.” Maurice, Strategikon 2.17f.; 3.5.3; 12.B.14; compare<br />
Sun Tsu, fragment 6, in Ames, Sun Tsu, 1993, 247. Discipline as Roman warrior style:<br />
Horsmann, Untersuchungen 1991, 196.<br />
17 Suetonius, Augustus 25.4: “Nihil autem minus perfecto duci quam festinationem<br />
temeritatemque convenire arbitrabatur” (i.e. haste and recklessness).<br />
18 Dumézil, Religion 1970, 210; idem, Horace 1942, 7ff.<br />
19 Vegetius 1.1; Josephus, Jewish War 4.45; Antiquities 19–1.15 (122); Appian 4.1.3; Dio<br />
38.45.4f. This cliché, found already in Aristotle (Pol. 1327.B.25), gets even more<br />
overworked during the third-century wars, especially in Dexippus: Bleckmann, Reichskrise<br />
1992, 208f. Panegyrici Latini 12.24.2: “Romanum vero militem quem qualemque ordinat<br />
disciplina et sacramenti religio confirmat.” Also Josephus, Jewish War 3.479 (Titus), and the<br />
epigraph to this chapter; Stoll, Integration 2001, 38.<br />
20 Decius: Dexippos 26.5. Celts: Strabo 4.195 (= 4.4.2); Livy 5.37.4 (387 BC); McCone,<br />
“Hund” 113; Birkhan, Kelten 1997, 968. Germani: Caesar, Gallic War 1.40.4. Vitruvius<br />
6.1.3–10; Josephus, Jewish War 2.377; Florus 1.37: “Invicta illa rabies et impetus quem pro<br />
virtute barbari habent.” Meuli, “Maske” 1933, 1845f. Tacitus, Histories 4.29: “inconsulta<br />
ira”; Appian 4.1.3; Dio 77.20.2; Panegyrici Latini 12.23.4: “tam prodigos sui”. Ammianus<br />
16.12.30: “rabies et immodicus furor”; 16.12.36–47; 25.5.33; 26.7.11; 31.6.3: “petulantia”;<br />
31.5.12: “vesania.” Iordanes, Getica 24: “beluina saevitia.” Cassiodorus, Variae 1.24.1:<br />
“gaudium comprobari,” cf. Beowulf 1539 gebolgen. Hamberg, “Germanen” 1936, 21–49,<br />
39f.; Timpe, “Furor” 1998, 254f. For ecstatic warriors see also de Vries, Religionsgeschichte<br />
I, 1956, 94ff. Cf. Tacitus, Annals 4.47 on cohors Sugambra “prompta ad pericula.”<br />
21 Hartmann, Römer 1985, fig. 4.<br />
22 Vulnerable: see p. 92. Advantage: Vegetius 2.14.3. Fight madly: Aeneid 12.499: “irarumque<br />
omnis effundit habenas”; Silius Italicus, Punica 5.158: “rabies”; 5.172: “furentem”;<br />
Lucanus, Pharsalia 7.551; 10.72; Tacitus, Histories 1.63: “furore et rabie”; Josephus<br />
approves of frenzied attacks—if done by Romans (B.I.3.485: ).
Notes 255<br />
Ammianus 16.12.37: “iretque in barbaros fremens.” Claudian, 7.73, claims for Honorius<br />
“quae tibi tum Martis rabies!” Aeneid 8.700–703; Dumézil, Religion 1970, 209; 390.<br />
Appian, Civil War 2.151: .<br />
23 Sallust, Catiline 53.3: “gloria belli Gallos ante Romanos fuisse.”<br />
24 Pliny, Panegyric 23: “nam milites nihil a plebe habitu tranquillitate modestia differebant.”<br />
Tacitus, Annals 3.40: “nihil validum in exercitibus nisi quod externum”; Histories 2.32:<br />
“Germanos quod genus militum apud hostes atrocissimum sit.” Aurelius Victor, Caesares<br />
3.15. Ammianus 31.5.4; Demandt, Spatantike 1989, 265ff.<br />
25 Roman ideal of manhood: Dahlmann, “Mannesideal” 1978; McCall, Cavalry, 1992. Lucan<br />
7.432ff.: “redituraque numquam/libertas ultra Tigrim Rhenumque recessit/ac totiens nobis<br />
iugulo quaesita vagatur/Germanum Scythicumque bonum, nec respicit ultra/Ausoniam.”<br />
Haas, “Germanen” 1943/44, 111ff.; Horsfall, “Romulus” 1971.<br />
26 Aeneid 7.641ff.; 9.603ff.; Silius Italicus 8.356ff.; Rehm, Bild 1932, 66ff.; 88f.; 96f. Virgil<br />
critical of this old Italy: Schweizer, Vergil 1967; Horsfall, “Romulus” 1971. Ethnological<br />
sources of Silius: Norden, Urgeschichte 1974, 165ff. Cf. Alföldi, Struktur 1974, 82:<br />
“Jedenfalls wussten noch die augusteischen Dichter sehr gut, dass in der alten Zeit die<br />
Krieger mit solchen Wolfsrachen ausgerüstet waren.” Lucanus, Pharsalia 1.419ff.<br />
27 Germani: Strabo 4.4.2, taking his account of the early Celts “from the customs that hold fast<br />
to this day among the Germani”; ibid. 4.4.3: Seneca,<br />
Dialogi 4.15.1; Tacitus, Histories 4.16.1: “Germani laeta bello gens”—compare Sallust, Cat.<br />
40.1: “natura gens Gallica bellicosa.” Ammianus 16.12.46: “Alamanni bella alacriter<br />
ineuntes”; Haas, “Germanen” 1943/44, 111. Russell, Germanization 1994, 118, calls<br />
<strong>Germanic</strong> culture at the time “the most authentic Indo-European”—yet Sarmatians, Alans,<br />
Slavs, and Balts might equal them if we knew more about them. Insular Celts: Birkhan,<br />
“Germanen” 1970, 391; 439; Evans, “Lords” 1997. Sarmatians (“Scythians”): Lucan<br />
7.432ff.; Vernadsky, “Hintergrund” 1951.<br />
28 Caesar, Gallic War 1.48; 7.65; 8.13; 4.12–15.<br />
29 Dio 38.45.4–5, going far beyond Caesar, Gallic War 1.40. Germani like Gauls: Dio 38.46.2.<br />
30 Forms of discipline: Tacitus, Histories 3.21, “fidei quam iussorum patientior”; Germania 7,<br />
“exemplo potius quam imperio.” Main enemies: Tacitus, Annals 2.88, “[Arminius]<br />
florentissimum imperium lacessierit”; Germania 37.3, “Quippe pro regno Arsacis acrior est<br />
Germanorum libertas”; Strobel, “Chattenkrieg” 1987, 431.<br />
31 Caesar, Gallic War 7.13.1; Aur. Victor, Caesares 3.14f.; Demandt, Spätantike 1989, 268ff.;<br />
Speidel, Riding 1994, 12ff.<br />
32 Fought: Dio 77.13.2; Herodian 7.2.6. Looks: Dio 77.11.1–2; Herodian 7.1.12. Panegyrici<br />
Latini 8.16.4 accuses the Roman pretender Allectus of wearing <strong>Germanic</strong> dress and long<br />
hair. Rome resisted where she could, and though giving in to military needs, she stood up to<br />
the northerners culturally: laws forbade the wearing of long hair or furs in the city: Codex<br />
Theod. 14.10.4: “Maiores crines, indumenta pellium etiam in servis intra urbem<br />
sacratissimam praecipimus inhiberi” (AD 416).<br />
33 Morillo, Warfare 1994, 2.<br />
34 Thus the vision of Altheim, Niedergang I, 1952, 215. Altheim takes the sundry old warrior<br />
styles all together as one “style of history,” rightly perhaps; but he overlooks that they are<br />
older than Greece and Rome, and he overstates the role of horsemen (the Auxilia Palatina<br />
were foot).<br />
35 Polybios 2.35.2–3 Strabo 4.4.2; Dio 38.45.4–5; Dexippos FGH II A 100, F 26.5.<br />
36 Panegyrici Latini 8.11: “Natio etiam tunc rudis et solis Pictis modo et Hibernis adsueta<br />
hostibus adhuc seminudis, facile Romanis armis signisque cesserunt.”<br />
37 De ira 1.11.3–4.<br />
38 Ammianus 21.13.13: “semiermes.”
Notes 256<br />
39 Spearblade: like Stilicho’s on his ivory diptych. Long-haired, blond, pretty-faced, young:<br />
Synesios, De regno 18.a.<br />
40 See p. 66. Cf. Priscus, frag. 30 (Blockley).<br />
41 Tacitus, Germania 14; Ammianus 16.12.60; Beowulf 2632ff.; see p. 117, this volume.<br />
Speidel, Riding 1994, 13ff.; 19; 25; 29; 36f.; 55; 58f.; 72; 84; 92; 102; 129.<br />
42 Herodotus 5.78, see also p. 59, this volume. Plato, Politeia 667 c (cf. Jaeger, Paideia 1973,<br />
II, 332f.)—<strong>Germanic</strong> women and children, as in Plato, witnessed battles: Tacitus, Germania<br />
7.2, with Much, Germania 1967, 162f.; see p. 64, this volume. Modern emphasis on morale<br />
in battle since Du Picq and Keegan: McCall, Cavalry 1992, 16ff.<br />
22<br />
END AND AFTERGLOW<br />
1 Gallic War 1.1.3 and 6.24. Tacitus, Agricola 11.5: “Nam Gallos quoque in bellis floruisse<br />
accepimus, mox segnitia cum otio intravit, amissa virtute pariter ac libertate. Quod<br />
Britannorum olim victis evenit: ceteri manent quales Galli fuerunt.” This is borne out by the<br />
fact that they were not recruited into the horse guard of the Equites Singulares Augusti:<br />
Speidel, Riding 1994, 81ff. Grágás (about AD 1130): “Ef gengr berserksgang.<br />
Oc honvm fiorbavrg (=banishment for three years)”; Blaney, “Berserkr”<br />
1972, 150.<br />
2 Contra: Lévi-Strauss, Tropiques 1977, 281ff.<br />
3 Culture understood with E.O.Wilson, Biophilia 1984, 101, as “a product of the mind which<br />
can be interpreted as an image-making machine that recreates the outside world through<br />
symbols arranged into maps and stories.”<br />
4 Eliade, Return 1954; Myth 1963, 145.<br />
5 Tacitus, Germania 7: “Velut deo imperante, quem adesse bellantibus credunt”; Much,<br />
Germania 1967, 160.<br />
6 Contamine, War 1984, 183. Military display especially conservative: Estell, “Poetry” 2000,<br />
52.<br />
7 Piggot, Europe 1965, 22: “Two groups of cultures, literate innovators and non-literate<br />
conservators,” lived side by side in Europe during the Roman Empire; cf. ibid. 226–260. An<br />
overly critical assessment of continuity in Indo-European warrior styles, equating<br />
conservative with static: Mallory, Search 1989, 110f.; better: Puhvel, Mythology 1987, 242.<br />
A model study of recurrent phenomena in ancient <strong>Germanic</strong> history across more than a<br />
thousand years is Wenskus’s Stammesbildung 1961. War-lore continues from AD 200 to<br />
1200 in naming weapons: Düwel, Runeninschriften 1998, 149. <strong>Ancient</strong> <strong>Germanic</strong>—medieval<br />
continuity: Höfler, “Kontinuitätsproblem” 1937; Kienast, “Treue” 1978, 320ff.; Beck et al.,<br />
Germanen 1998, 240ff.<br />
8 Third-century aristocrats e.g. Werner, Zierscheiben 1941; Storgaard, “Aristocrats” 2003.<br />
9 DeMarrais et al., Ideology 1996.<br />
10 Piggott, Europe 1965, 226–260. The Vikings did not change essential customs: Grönbech,<br />
Kultur 1997, II, 306. See also Rives, Tacitus 1999, 135ff.: “It is necessary to extrapolate. Yet<br />
it seems safe to do so, because in its main lines the picture remains fairly consistent over the<br />
centuries.” Contra: Lund, “Germania” 1991, 2050ff., seeing continuity as “belanglose<br />
Parallelen.”<br />
11 Fornmanna sögur 3, 182f.; Höfler, Geheimbünde 1934, 172ff.<br />
12 Wild Hunt: Höfler, Geheimbünde 1934; Kershaw, God 2000. Farther afield, in Tibet and<br />
Japan, images of ancient Indian Hayagrîva horse-hooded warriors, now god-like heroes, still<br />
dance the war dance. Indian warriors with horse-hoods: Herodotus 7.70. In June 2000 I
Notes 257<br />
noted a Hayagrîva “Horse Buddha” in Tibet’s Sera monastery who was still escaping<br />
destruction by Chinese occupiers; Linrothe, Compassion 1999, 85ff.; Widengren,<br />
Feudalismus 1969, 150f.; Alföldi, Struktur 1974, 96 (Gandharva).<br />
13 Beowulf 671ff.; also 2506ff.; 2518f.<br />
14 Bartoli’s drawings: Dzur, Trajanssdule 1941 (scene 36 is Bild 25f.). Civilis: Teitler, Opstand<br />
1998, 20. Buck-warriors: Teitler, Opstand 1998, 22, taken up in 1950 by John Huizinga:<br />
Teitler, Opstand 1998, 11; see also 9; 40; 66.<br />
15 Painting by Charles Gleyre, now in the Musée Cantonal des Beaux Arts, Lausanne,<br />
reproduced as a cover illustration to Birley, Tacitus 1999. See also the painting by P.<br />
Thumann, Return of the Victorious Teutons.<br />
16 D.Baatz kindly informed me of the iron sculpture now in the Schinkel Pavilion of Schloss<br />
Charlottenburg, Berlin, and of the Schwetzingen piece.<br />
17 McNeill, Keeping 1955. At the beginning of the Iraqi war in 2003, men of the 3rd US<br />
infantry division stomped out a war dance, for dancing still arouses feelings like those of the<br />
ancient warriors. In the same war, the US Marine unit that drew fire in the town of Nasiriyah<br />
was “Timberwolf”: under the spell of animal sympathy another world, ancient and uncanny,<br />
still opens. Michael Crichton’s film The Thirteenth Warrior needlessly casts bear-warriors as<br />
foreign and ugly, yet it stirs powerfully. Knowledge, according to Plato (Seventh Letter,<br />
344a), needs an inborn affinity.
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INDEX<br />
Adrianople 68, 70, 93, 116, 139<br />
Africans 2, 13, 87, 91, 194<br />
ala see army (Roman)<br />
Alamannia, Alamanni 20–7, 29–30, 32–3, 67, 70, 95, 105, 139, 143, 148, 154, 160–3, 175, 180;<br />
artists 163;<br />
Gutenstein 3, 24–35, 163;<br />
Iuthungi 22, 148;<br />
Pliezhausen 140, 161–3<br />
Ambrones 52, 115<br />
American Indians 2, 13–14, 22, 39, 44–6, 57, 69, 71, 87, 92, 179;<br />
Skraelings 76<br />
Ammianus Marcellinus 67–8, 70, 87, 105, 110, 116, 139, 160–1<br />
ancestors 1, 14, 29, 37, 123–4, 198<br />
Anglo-Saxons 23, 31, 43, 97, 103, 109, 185;<br />
helmets 185;<br />
see also England<br />
animal sympathy 13–17, 19–21, 45, 53–4, 67, 111, 194;<br />
see also skin<br />
antiquity 63, 100, 109, 123, 132, 140–1, 145, 180–2, 200<br />
aristocrats 132, 198–9,<br />
see also athelings;<br />
leaders<br />
Armilausi 8, 60, 64, 78<br />
Arminius 110, 154<br />
Ariovistus 103–5, 107–8, 111, 196<br />
armor 57–58, 62, 64, 88, 93, 97, 195;<br />
armored horsemen 94–96;<br />
see also hauberk<br />
army (Roman) 6–9, 41, 110, 117;<br />
ala 7, 16, 136–8;<br />
antesignani 18;<br />
armilustrium 18, 167;<br />
Celeres 148<br />
clibanarii 161, 164;<br />
cohort 7–8, 104, 115, 153–4;<br />
composition 9–10;<br />
excubitores 42;<br />
horsemen 152, 168;<br />
irregulars 9, 104, 181;<br />
legion 8, 41, 64, 91, 104, 108, 110, 153–4, 176;<br />
praetorians 8, 66, 91;<br />
strike force 7–9, 17, 19, 88–90;<br />
velites 17, 142;
Index 284<br />
see also auxilia, discipline, gravestones, schola, singulares, standard-bearers,<br />
Års see Denmark<br />
art 33, 162–3<br />
Assyria 57–9;<br />
see also Tukulti-Ninurta<br />
athelings 100, 106, 117, 122, 185–6, 199<br />
attack 5, 92, 104–6, 116–7, 140, 146, 148;<br />
circling attack 106, 146–8;<br />
formations 148, 187;<br />
see also canter<br />
Aurelian Column 169<br />
auxilia 7–9, 17, 19, 39–41, 64, 104, 137, 182, 185, 195;<br />
palatina 20–2, 47–9, 52–3, 91, 111, 117<br />
ax 119, 198<br />
Balder 68, 111, 118–9, 121<br />
barbarians 193–4<br />
bare-chested 5, 9, 60, 64–5; 68, 88–92, 106, 114, 158–9, 168, 194<br />
bare-headed 60<br />
barefoot 5, 9, 64–5, 91–2, 194<br />
barritus 104, 106, 108, 111–3, 115–7, 126, 197<br />
Bastarnae 115, 166<br />
Batavi 1, 7–8, 17, 98, 104–6, 115, 130, 135–6;<br />
146, 179;<br />
see also horse guard<br />
battle 105, 114–5, 117, 120, 123, 125, 130, 179, 187, 195<br />
battle array 105<br />
Battle of Maldon 70–1, 78, 109, 145<br />
Bavaria 24, 30, 33, 123–4, 143, 166, 180<br />
Bayeux tapestry 96, 109, 122, 140, 145, 148<br />
bear-warriors 7, 14, 17–19; 28, 35–6, 39–46, 74, 80, 200<br />
beginning of time 1, 36<br />
belt 30–1, 88, 118, 123<br />
Beowulf 2, 35, 70–1, 111, 123, 184–5, 199<br />
berserks 8–9, 36–7, 43–4, 57–80, 91–2, 105, 111, 179–80, 193, 197, 199<br />
birds 126, 161<br />
black-painted 81–2<br />
blindness 120<br />
boar 22, 53–4, 139;<br />
boarhead-wedge 106–7<br />
bodyguard 9, 18, 65–6, 75, 106;<br />
see also horse guard<br />
bonds of obligation 153, 179, 197<br />
boomerang 94, 119<br />
Bothvar Bjarki 45, 77<br />
bow and arrow 59, 60, 64, 67, 73, 76, 105, 107,132<br />
bracteates 2, 34, 119–21, 145, 164<br />
Bråvalla 6, 31,44,96, 125<br />
Britons see Celts<br />
bronze age 2–3, 50, 57, 59, 73, 81, 87, 98, 117, 129, 151, 193–4,201<br />
buck-warriors 47–50, 197
Buri see Armilausi<br />
Byzantium 107–8, 110, 140, 148, 161, 175, 197<br />
Index 285<br />
Caesar 8–9, 14, 23, 103, 108, 111, 152–4, 166, 195–7<br />
Canninefates 8, 136–8<br />
canter 140, 158, 166, 171<br />
cavalry see horse<br />
Celts 2, 7, 13–15, 20, 47, 57, 60, 69–70, 75, 107, 114, 122, 129, 135, 142, 151–2, 175, 196;<br />
Britons 64–5;<br />
Gauls 17, 64, 98, 146–7, 153, 166, 177, 195, 198;<br />
Lusitani 142, 175;<br />
Picts 33, 197;<br />
Scots 73;<br />
see also Gaesati;<br />
Irish<br />
champion 19, 28, 36–7, 44, 63, 75, 80, 106, 117, 120, 126, 180<br />
Chatti 8, 79, 100, 167, 175–80<br />
Cherusci 98–100, 145, 154<br />
China 13, 39, 44, 196<br />
Christianity 3, 29, 33, 37, 42, 50, 71, 74, 78, 80, 121, 124, 163, 199<br />
churls 106, 130–2<br />
Cimbri 20, 60<br />
cleaver 168–9<br />
club 8–10, 18, 50, 57, 60, 72, 87–97, 106, 119–20, 194<br />
column (formation) 100, 107<br />
Cornuti 47, 106, 111, 115–16<br />
cross 26–7, 34<br />
crown 184–9<br />
cuirass 66–7<br />
see also hauberk<br />
cultural continuity 3, 80, 109, 132, 140–1, 145, 163, 186, 199–202<br />
cuneus:<br />
see column;<br />
shield castle<br />
Danube 3, 94, 169, 196<br />
dance 1–2, 27–9, 31–2, 50, 68–9, 108, 110, 114–26, 161, 193, 198;<br />
pyrrica 116;<br />
see also barritus;<br />
tripudium<br />
daring 151, 194<br />
dart-throwers 129–30<br />
Denmark 3, 19, 31, 49–50, 63, 69, 77, 97, 117, 179, 200;<br />
Års 31,96, 118–21, 123;<br />
Gallehus horns 50, 96, 122;<br />
Gundestrup 19;<br />
Himlingøje 117, 120, 122;<br />
Hjortspring 166–7, 170;<br />
Kitnæs 121;<br />
Viksø 181<br />
Dioscuri 114, 121–2, 164
discipline 9, 103, 109, 117, 140, 147, 194–5<br />
dog-warriors 17, 33, 36, 59;<br />
hounds 20–1<br />
dragon 31, 34–5, 48, 58, 75, 112, 117–25, 164;<br />
see also headdress<br />
dress 5, 7–8, 26, 34, 39, 45, 66, 71–2, 78, 81–2, 88–91, 122–3, 148, 164, 167;<br />
golden 124, 194<br />
Dumézil, G. 3, 72, 194<br />
ecstasy 1, 29, 36, 60, 73, 117, 119, 123, 188, 194<br />
Edda 35, 82, 109, 113, 126;<br />
HamDismál 175;<br />
Hávamál 113;<br />
Lokasenna 126;<br />
Rigthula 79<br />
einheriar 33<br />
Eliade, M. 3, 29, 54<br />
elite warriors 88, 99–100, 106, 145, 164<br />
emperors (German): 97, 187–9<br />
emperors (Roman) 3–5,8–9, 65, 143, 157–8, 187, 197;<br />
Allectus 66;<br />
Aurelian 9, 94–5;<br />
Caligula 66, 76, 142, 166, 197<br />
Caracalla 9, 66, 196;<br />
Constantine 2, 9, 22, 47–9, 52–3, 66–7, 75, 95, 143, 164, 197;<br />
Constantius II 67, 116, 197;<br />
Domitian 176;<br />
Gratian 67;<br />
Hadrian 137, 139, 148;<br />
Julian 20–2, 50, 67–8, 71, 110, 116, 161, 197;<br />
Septimius Severus 196;<br />
Theodosius 197;<br />
Trajan 3–10, 19–20, 41, 66, 68, 137, 196;<br />
Vespasian 157;<br />
Vitellius 19;<br />
see also Caesar<br />
England 73, 76;<br />
Caenby 122;<br />
Dover 122;<br />
Finglesham 118, 120–1, 123;<br />
Hastings 97, 109, 111;<br />
Sutton Hoo 28, 31, 69, 120, 185<br />
ethos 193<br />
Eyvind Skaldaspillir 33, 108<br />
fairness 71<br />
fame 60, 64, 77, 158, 193, 199<br />
fate 163–4<br />
fear 110, 114, 120, 180, 194<br />
fire 36, 74, 79<br />
first in battle 73, 79, 106–7, 179<br />
Index 286
Florus 153–4<br />
food and drink 193<br />
foot 5,7, 16, 106, 117, 129, 136, 139–40, 151–71<br />
Franks 20, 30–1, 42–3, 50, 66, 71, 94–5, 97, 106–7, 110, 121, 143, 145, 148, 185;<br />
Grésin 121<br />
freedom 67, 196, 198<br />
Gaesati 60, 64, 69<br />
Germani, <strong>Germanic</strong>passim<br />
Germany 7, 9, 13, 20, 41, 65, 123;<br />
Elbe 63;<br />
Hirschlanden 57, 60, 75;<br />
Mainz 42, 154–5, 157, 161, 163–4, 167;<br />
Oberwarngau 30;<br />
Obrigheim 27–31, 35;<br />
Thorsberg 51, 186–7;<br />
see also Danube;<br />
Rhine<br />
gods 19, 28, 57, 93–4, 110, 114–5, 121, 122–3, 126, 198<br />
Goths 70, 93–4, 107, 110, 116, 123, 131, 175<br />
government 179<br />
gravestones 154–8, 161–4, 167–8, 171, 177–8;<br />
of Andes 167;<br />
of Dexileos 157;<br />
somewhat realistic 178;<br />
Greece, Greeks 3, 14, 20, 72, 75, 81–3, 87–8, 91–2, 98, 111, 122, 126, 136–8 165, 175, 193–5;<br />
Aetolians 59, 64, 194;<br />
Arcadians 23, 115;<br />
Athenians 81–2, 194;<br />
Geometric and Archaic period: 47, 59, 114, 142;<br />
Hellenistic 123;<br />
Homeric 2;<br />
Mycenaeans 16–17, 47, 59, 75, 88, 98, 135;<br />
Sparta 16, 59, 64, 81, 110, 114, 116, 131, 175, 194<br />
Greenlanders 76<br />
Gregory of Tours 30, 43<br />
guard 66, 75, 197;<br />
see also singulares<br />
hair 58, 61, 88, 167, 175–81, 184;<br />
blond 60, 62, 71, 194;<br />
cut 180, 194;<br />
flowing 194;<br />
hairband 176–7;<br />
hairdo 159;<br />
shaking 175;<br />
see also long-hairs<br />
handsomeness 61–2<br />
Harald Fairhair 8–9, 43, 74–5, 180<br />
Harald Wartooth 64, 71, 78, 96–7, 125, 180<br />
Harii 81–3<br />
Index 287
Index 288<br />
hauberk 26, 33, 37, 39, 44, 75, 100, 104, 122;<br />
lack of 67–8, 96–7<br />
Hawaiians 93, 130, 143<br />
headdress, headgear 30–1, 117–25<br />
heathendom 31, 33<br />
Hebrides 45, 78<br />
Hector 16, 59, 69, 98, 114, 123, 194<br />
Heliodorus 160–1<br />
helmet 37–8, 40–1, 47–9, 51–2, 63, 67, 75, 104, 108, 112, 120, 125–6, 143, 181–9;<br />
crossband helmets 181–9;<br />
golden 185–9;<br />
guard helmets 183;<br />
helm-bearer 105–6;<br />
lack of 62, 96;<br />
Vendel-helmets 27–8, 31, 122–3, 140, 145, 163, 181–7<br />
Heodeningas see Hjadnings<br />
Hercules 1, 42, 87–8, 92, 94, 110–11<br />
Hermunduri 166<br />
hero 28, 34–5, 70, 87–8, 96, 110–1, 117, 123, 130, 145, 161, 164, 201;<br />
see also Beowulf;<br />
Sigmund;<br />
Sigurd<br />
Heruls 49, 64–5, 68<br />
Hjadnings 33<br />
Homer 2, 6, 13, 16, 103, 193;<br />
see also Hector<br />
hood see skin<br />
horse, horsemen 4, 7, 59, 87, 92, 94–97, 117, 129, 135–48, 151–71;<br />
guard 7, 9, 94–6, 129, 131, 143;<br />
see also canter<br />
horse-hewers 159, 165–71<br />
horse-stabbers 65, 123, 151–64, 168<br />
Hroc 21–2<br />
hundred 105, 157, 160, 171<br />
Huns 51<br />
Iberia 88, 111, 114, 142<br />
Iceland 2,18, 36, 199;<br />
see also sagas<br />
Indo-Europeans 2–3, 13–18, 22, 33, 35, 39, 47, 51, 57–60, 72, 80, 83, 87, 94, 98, 103, 105, 110,<br />
114, 116, 135, 151–2, 164, 175, 187, 193–4;<br />
Aestii 93;<br />
Celtiberians 88, 111, 114, 142, 175;<br />
Dacians 3–5, 20, 65, 88, 91–2, 94, 103, 105, 148, 152, 198;<br />
dispersal 3, 15;<br />
Hittites 15–16, 44, 58–9, 75;<br />
Illyrians 146;<br />
Indians 3, 13, 16, 31, 47, 59, 70, 72, 114, 122, 175, 185, 193;<br />
Iranians 13, 50, 58, 67, 72, 83, 95–6, 114, 175, 196;<br />
Lithuanians 33;<br />
Massagetae 135;
Index 289<br />
Medes 135;<br />
Mitanni 51;<br />
Philistines 145;<br />
Sarmatians 4–5, 20, 71, 138–9;<br />
Scythians 16, 88;<br />
Shardana 16, 47, 59, 75, 151;<br />
Slavs 33, 69, 115;<br />
Thracians 20, 93, 111, 114–15, 152, 154, 165–6, 194;<br />
see also Greeks;<br />
Irish;<br />
Italic tribes;<br />
Romans;<br />
warband<br />
Irish 33, 45, 69, 100, 180, 194, 197;<br />
CúChulainn 70<br />
iron age 59, 106, 108, 145, 193–6, 201<br />
Italic tribes 17, 39, 59–61, 79, 107, 175, 194–6;<br />
Brettii 23;<br />
Lucani 22–3;<br />
Praeneste 22–2;<br />
Hirpi Sorani 17, 36, 72;<br />
Oscans 91, 93<br />
keeping faith 9, 197<br />
Kernosovka, Ukraine 57, 87, 193<br />
king 31, 36, 39, 66, 75, 80, 106, 122–34, 139, 180, 186–9;<br />
see also Harald Wartooth;<br />
Harald Farhair<br />
knights 38, 124, 148, 171<br />
lance see spear<br />
language 137;<br />
family 3;<br />
<strong>Germanic</strong> 148<br />
law 180<br />
leaders 99, 106, 117, 121–2, 125, 132, 145, 169, 180, 184–6, 194, 196<br />
Libanius 95–6, 106<br />
Lombards, Longobards 20, 23, 35–6, 64, 68, 71, 107, 148<br />
long-hairs 106, 123–4, 152, 158, 167, 175–80;<br />
see also Chatti<br />
looks 8, 41, 58, 65, 69–70, 81–3, 90<br />
Ludwigslied 110<br />
Lugii 81–3<br />
Lykurgos 16<br />
madness (furor) 16, 30, 43–6, 57, 59–64, 67–72, 89, 120, 122, 126, 179, 194–5<br />
Marcomanni 148<br />
Mars 119, 202<br />
marten-warriors 51–3<br />
mask 1–2, 32, 46, 123–4, 180, 186, 198<br />
Mauri 6, 65
Maurice 71, 105, 107–8, 140<br />
Merovingians 29, 94, 199<br />
Middle Ages 17, 33, 35, 37, 50, 63, 96–7, 103, 109, 132, 138, 140–1, 171, 180, 196, 199–201;<br />
Early 19, 24, 40, 42–5, 50, 94, 68–70, 100, 107–9, 117–8, 122–3, 139–41, 143, 145, 161–4,<br />
183–7<br />
mind-set 197, 201<br />
missilia see darts<br />
mixed horse-foot formation 170–1<br />
Mongols 22<br />
myth 3, 6, 18, 22, 28–9, 31, 33–7, 43, 45–6, 51, 54, 59, 73, 81–2, 88, 111, 122–3, 164, 193;<br />
Ragnarök 28, 33, 82, 188;<br />
Valhalla 28, 33;<br />
see also Hrocx;<br />
Romulus;<br />
Woden<br />
nakedness 8, 57–76, 69, 72, 92, 96, 117–18, 120–3, 151–2, 154, 171<br />
names 2, 19, 22, 29–30, 32–3, 40, 44, 53, 87–8, 107, 120, 122–3, 125, 145, 186<br />
neckband see ring<br />
night warfare 81<br />
Normans 96–7, 109, 111, 132, 148, 186<br />
northern Europe 3, 18, 31–7, 43, 59, 66, 93, 140, 145, 166–7, 186, 198<br />
Norway 3, 33, 76, 97, 100, 164, 180, 185;<br />
Gudbrandsdalen 120;<br />
Oseberg 31, 44, 53–4, 105, 109, 112, 120, 125–6;<br />
Stiklastad 36, 97, 100, 109, 111, 130, 132, 187<br />
not yielding ground 71, 77–9<br />
Odoacar 87–8<br />
Palestine 95<br />
Palmyra 94–5<br />
pelt see skin<br />
pennon 137<br />
Pharsalus 153–4<br />
Placentia 113<br />
Plato 110, 114, 193, 197<br />
Polynesians 114<br />
Portonaccio sarcophagus 91, 159–60, 168–9<br />
praetorians see army<br />
Quadi 138, 142<br />
quiet 194<br />
Index 290<br />
reason 193–5<br />
recklessness 16–17, 45, 60–79, 91–2, 105–6, 120, 140, 148, 194<br />
religion see Christianity;<br />
gods;<br />
heathendom;<br />
Woden
Index 291<br />
Rhine (area) 3, 104–5, 110, 115, 137, 154–7, 161, 167–9, 196<br />
ring 78–9, 176, 179, 197;<br />
neckband 118, 197<br />
rocks for throwing 93, 105, 131–2<br />
Romans 14, 17, 20–1, 30, 33, 47–9, 51, 59–60, 64, 69, 89, 98, 106, 111, 122, 135, 142, 193–202;<br />
Lupercalia 47;<br />
Romulus 17, 22–4, 47;<br />
Salii 115;<br />
see also army (Roman)<br />
Rugians 145<br />
sagas 2, 32, 36–7, 44–6, 65, 68, 71, 74, 77–9, 100, 109, 201;<br />
Egils saga 32, 74–5;<br />
Eiriks saga 76;<br />
Eyrbyggja saga 180;<br />
Grettis saga 100;<br />
Laxardal saga 100, 187;<br />
Vatnsdæla saga 37;<br />
Ynglinga saga 74<br />
Saxo Grammaticus 6, 36, 50, 63–4, 68, 71, 77–79, 97, 108, 117<br />
Saxons 43, 117, 124, 143, 180<br />
scabbard 24–6, 31, 34, 49, 62, 177<br />
Scandinavia 27, 33, 44, 74, 78, 109, 194, 199<br />
scholae:<br />
gentilium 9;<br />
scutariorum 9<br />
self-dedication 29<br />
service in the Roman army 7–10; 65, 143, 148, 153, 169, 196–7;<br />
see also ala;<br />
auxilia;<br />
cohort<br />
shaman 14, 57<br />
shape-shifting 45, 58, 70<br />
Shardana see Indo-Europeans<br />
shield 64, 66, 69, 71, 74, 97–8, 100, 103–9, 112, 114–16, 119;<br />
badge 20–2, 48–9, 81, 104, 114–16; 120–1;<br />
boss 108;<br />
castle 91, 100, 103–9, 117, 126;<br />
coat used as 155–6, 168;<br />
lack of 68, 75, 77, 152, 155, 168;<br />
long 143;<br />
round 129, 139;<br />
six-cornered 6–7, 157;<br />
wall 100, 126, 132<br />
Siberia 14, 44<br />
siege 106<br />
Sigmund 23, 34–6, 111, 164<br />
Sigurd 34–5<br />
single combat 60, 103<br />
singulares:<br />
equites 4, 7; 9;
Index 292<br />
pedites 8, 65<br />
skill 105, 107, 117, 146–7, 180<br />
skin, hood 14, 17, 26, 32–4; 40–42, 123, 200<br />
slingers 64, 91, 94, 129, 131<br />
Snorri Sturlusson 33, 35–6, 44, 70, 74,<br />
snorting 70, 79<br />
song 69, 110–1, 114–5, 122, 124<br />
spear 27, 32, 63, 69, 75, 91, 98–100, 104, 107, 117–21, 129, 197;<br />
ango 145, 198;<br />
barbed 142–5;<br />
borne on shoulder 32, 137–40;<br />
framea 129, 132;<br />
for horsemen 135–41, 143–8;<br />
lance 32, 100, 135–141, 161; 164;<br />
short 151, 159, 195;<br />
throwing strap 145;<br />
Woden’s 145<br />
speed 8, 15, 59, 62, 167, 194<br />
squires 166, 169–71<br />
standard 122, 164;<br />
bearers 18, 41, 109, 125<br />
stealth 15, 83, 89<br />
stone age 13, 42, 44, 53, 91<br />
stone-throwing 64<br />
storm 33, 58, 70, 108, 111<br />
Strabo 129<br />
Strassburg 70, 105–6, 111, 116, 164, 187<br />
strength 87–8, 96–8, 114, 126<br />
Suebi 93, 147, 179–80<br />
Sugambri 115, 117<br />
Sweden 3, 27, 30–3, 50, 68, 71, 95, 98, 108, 122, 164;<br />
Björkö 120, 122–3, 200;<br />
Ekhammar 26, 32–5;<br />
Tanum, Bohuslän 117;<br />
Torslunda 26–7, 31–35, 48, 68, 100, 117, 120, 126;<br />
Uppakra 120;<br />
Uppsala 199;<br />
Valsgarde 105, 112, 141, 163;<br />
Vendel 27, 139–41, 143;<br />
Vendel helmet imagery 163<br />
Switzerland 117, 200;<br />
Windisch 120, 195<br />
sword 18–19, 28, 31, 34–5, 39, 58–9, 62–3, 65–6, 68, 70, 79, 88–92, 114, 117; 120, 151<br />
blow 184–5;<br />
curved 152, 165–71, 194;<br />
swordsmen 185;<br />
two-handed 71, 75–7, 79;<br />
see also scabbard<br />
symbol 13, 38, 186, 194;<br />
see also cross
Tacitus 7–9, 71, 81–2, 91, 98–100, 110–11, 113, 117, 120, 125, 129, 135–8, 146–7, 160, 171, 176–<br />
80, 196<br />
tactics 8–9, 67–8, 93, 99–100, 103–9, 116, 137, 143, 152, 187, 194, 201<br />
tallness 8, 62, 64, 88, 92, 100, 151, 195<br />
Tencteri 147, 152–4<br />
Teutoburg Forest 107<br />
Theoderic 124<br />
Thor 87, 94, 97, 111, 175<br />
Thorbjorn Hornklofi 7, 13, 43<br />
Thorir Hound 36, 96<br />
Thorolf 32, 75<br />
Totila 123<br />
training 107, 140<br />
Trajan’s Column 3–7, 17–19, 41, 44, 60–1, 64–5, 91–4, 96–7, 105–7, 152, 196, 200–1;<br />
accuracy 6–8, 17, 90, 201,<br />
Moesian campaign 4–5;<br />
scene 5, 135, scene24, 8, 88–90;<br />
scene 36:4–10; 17–19, 24, 39–41, 63, 65, 78, 88, 92, 105, 183, 186;<br />
scenes 37–42, 5–8, 62–63, 89–90;<br />
scene 70, 104, 115<br />
tribal troops 4, 6–10, 19–20, 62, 105, 117, 122–3<br />
tripudium 116<br />
Tropaeum Traiani 4,6, 8, 64<br />
Tukulti-Ninurta 57–9, 68–70, 76, 114, 175<br />
Tungri 138<br />
Turks 22, 42<br />
twelve 19, 37, 75<br />
twins 23, 122<br />
úlfheDnar see wolf-warriors<br />
Usipi 152–4<br />
Vagdavercustis 115<br />
Vandals 71, 148<br />
Vergil 6, 59, 71, 91, 93, 196<br />
Vikings 75, 78, 110, 180, 186<br />
Index 293<br />
wale 184–7<br />
war cry 110–11, 113<br />
warband 23–4, 28–9, 31, 33, 64, 70, 75–6, 78, 123, 179, 185–6, 193–4, 197<br />
warrior:<br />
colorful 6;<br />
fierce 8;<br />
skill 8–9;<br />
society 36;<br />
styles 1–3, 39;<br />
148, 180, 193, 196–202<br />
weapons 7–8, 26, 32, 88, 96, 118–20, 137, 185, 193, 198;<br />
blunted 120;<br />
bronze-decorated 169;<br />
of leaders 108, 145, 169;
miniature 169;<br />
Roman 7;<br />
spirit 196;<br />
wooden 93, 96;<br />
see also cleaver;<br />
club;<br />
dagger;<br />
hauberk;<br />
helmets;<br />
lance;<br />
shield;<br />
spear;<br />
rocks;<br />
sword<br />
willfulness 117, 193<br />
Willows, battle at the 93, 110–11<br />
windpipe 14, 36, 79<br />
Woden 2, 26–33, 35–6, 42–4, 45–6, 69–70, 73–4, 80, 82–83, 95–6, 98, 100, 108–9, 111–3, 117–<br />
126, 145, 163–4, 179, 188, 199<br />
wolf-warriors 7–8, 13–41, 43–4, 59–60, 74, 80, 105–6, 123–4, 126, 193–4, 199–200;<br />
howling 13–14, 31, 33, 36, 45, 59, 79, 126;<br />
tail 120;<br />
see also names;<br />
windpipe<br />
women 76, 79, 81–2, 125, 199<br />
wounds 64<br />
woundlessness 36, 59–60, 72, 120<br />
yelling 110–13, 126, 194<br />
youth 19, 23, 36, 41, 61, 63–5, 81–2, 171, 178–9<br />
Index 294